In the next few years, it will be necessary to deal in greater depth with the relationships between mental health, climate change, extreme weather events, large fires. New forms of discomfort emerge. It talks about it in the insert on newsstands Thursday 14 October
We are publishing a preview of part of an article in the new Corriere Salute. You can read the full text on the issue at newsstands for free on Thursday 14 October or in Pdf on the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.
Now even the great world leaders are sounding the alarm about the climate and declaring the need for an immediate change of course to avoid handing over to future generations an inhospitable and unbalanced natural environment. But the negative effects on human health of an already altered climate situation are already there for all to see. Climate change, confirmed by now evident data, has profound and serious consequences on the psychophysical health of man, which can be direct or secondary to changes in the natural environment – underlines Donatella Marazziti of the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Psychiatry Section, of the University of Pisa, author with some collaborators of a review of the scientific literature on the subject published in the journal Science of the Total Environment -. We are witnessing changes in the normal physiological responses due to a forced different distribution of people due to migration, geographical reorganization or destruction of natural habitats that generate problems in agriculture and livestock activities. They also derive from it scarcity of natural resources and food with social, economic and geopolitical consequences.
Climate change and epidemics
A type of risk to which some segments of the population are especially exposed, such as the elderly, children, women, individuals with pre-existing diseases, and in particular those with mental disorders, or people with low income and immigrants. In this regard, a specific section of the World Psychiatry Association (WPA) was also created called eco-psychiatry, aimed at applying ecological principles to psychiatric clinical practice. The data from the scientific literature now make it possible to hypothesize not only that there are relationships between climate change and pollution, but also that the modification of some meteorological parameters associated with more general climate change may favor epidemics, such as the current Covid-19 pandemic and what destruction of habitats in which wild animals live can reduce that natural barrier that keeps them separate from human beings, thus facilitating the so-called spillover between different species, the passage of pathogens, such as viruses. The spread and mortality of the Covid-19 pandemic appear to be particularly high in highly polluted urban areas. And air pollution, climate change, and Sars-Cov-2 virus infection can cause alterations in the central nervous system, resulting in disturbances in the area of mental health.
You can continue reading the article on the Health Courier on newsstands for free on Thursday 14 October or in Pdf on the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.
October 12, 2021 (change October 12, 2021 | 18:27)
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