Cited by 492Climate Change and Health ImpactsClimate Change Communication and PerceptionMental Health Treatment and Access

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 68 of the 68 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 16 of the 48 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Empirical evidence of mental health risks posed by climate change

Open access
Obradovich, Nick, Migliorini, Robyn, Paulus, Martin P., Rahwan, Iyad·2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Sound mental health-a critical facet of human wellbeing-has the potential to be undermined by climate change. Few large-scale studies have empirically examined this hypothesis. Here, we show that short-term exposure to more extreme weather, multiyear warming, and tropical cyclone exposure each associate with worsened mental health. To do so, we couple meteorological and climatic data with reported mental health difficulties drawn from nearly 2 million randomly sampled US residents between 2002 and 2012. We find that shifting from monthly temperatures between 25 °C and 30 °C to >30 °C increases the probability of mental health difficulties by 0.5% points, that 1°C of 5-year warming associates with a 2% point increase in the prevalence of mental health issues, and that exposure to Hurricane Katrina associates with a 4% point increase in this metric. Our analyses provide added quantitative support for the conclusion that environmental stressors produced by climate change pose threats to human mental health.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1073/pnas.1801528115

Cites

68 of 68 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

23 Own method · 23 Own result · 10 Own interpretation · 9 No full text of the sources · 7 Partly supported · 7 Sources not found · 3 Supported so far · 2 Not checked yet · 2 No basis given · 1 Not supported · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 64 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 12
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 15
23 of 23
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Historical relationships between climatic variations and mental health can help estimate the magnitude of risks that climate change poses to mental health.

    “These historical relationships can aid in estimating the magnitude of the risks that climate change poses to mental health.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Meteorological variation is exogenous.

    “leveraging exogenous meteorological variation to examine the effect of short-run (past 30 d) weather exposure on individuals' mental health outcomes”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    In the absence of Hurricane Katrina, disaster and nondisaster areas would have followed parallel trends in mental health.

    “we use a difference-in-differences approach, leveraging the landfall of Hurricane Katrina to examine the association between tropical cyclone exposure and our measure of reported mental health outcomes”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Spatial variation in multiyear warming is exogenous to unobserved determinants of mental health changes.

    “we use the long-differences approach (28, 45, 47), leveraging spatial variation in city-level changes between the years 2002-2006 and 2007-2011”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Hurricane Katrina exposure is captured by declared disaster areas.

    “Cities with declared disasters observed an increase in reports of mental health issues over this same period.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    After conditioning on the fixed effects, the remaining variation in 30-day maximum temperature and precipitation is as good as random.

    “Our empirical identifying assumption is that the remaining variation in 30-d maximum temperature and precipitation is as good as random after conditioning on these fixed effects (45, 62) ( SI Appendix , Fig. S2).”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    City-level changes in mean maximum temperature between the two periods are uncorrelated with unobserved time-varying variables that affect mental health outcomes.

    “Unbiasedness of β requires that city-level changes in mean maximum temperature between our two periods are uncorrelated with unobserved time-varying variables that alter our mental health outcomes of interest (47).”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    There are no contemporaneous shocks, and disaster-affected areas were trending similarly to nondisaster areas before Hurricane Katrina landfall.

    “Unbiasedness of ψ requires the assumption of no contemporaneous shocks and that disaster affected areas were trending similarly to nondisaster areas before hurricane landfall (48).”
8 of 8

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Self-check

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1 of 1

Citations

Cites

Show all 65 references

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. S Clayton, C Manning, C Hodge Beyond Storms & Droughts: The Psychological Impacts of Climate Change (American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica, Washington, DC, 2014).

Cited by

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Items 401–488 of 488

Metadata

Authors
Obradovich, N., Migliorini, R., Paulus, M. P., & Rahwan, I.
Affiliations
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital (US)
  • University of California San Diego (US)
  • MIT Media Lab (US)
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2018-10-08
Volume
115
Issue
43
Pages
10953-10958
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W2894555852
Cited by
492
References
65
Citations by year
2026: 77 · 2025: 83 · 2024: 82 · 2023: 62 · 2022: 62 · 2021: 76 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 2
FWCI
15.51
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Climate Change and Health Impacts
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Mental Health Treatment and Access
Keywords
climate change, mental health, extreme weather events, heat exposure, tropical cyclones, Hurricane Katrina, environmental stressors
MeSH terms
Mental Disorders, Cross-Sectional Studies, Disasters, Humans, Mental Health, Risk, Weather, Prevalence, Cyclonic Storms, Climate Change

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