Climate Psychiatry: The Impacts of Climate Change Intergenerational Trauma's Impact on Reproductive, Neuropsychiatric and Neurodegenerative Disorders

Abstract

Climate change is an inexorable global phenomenon with far-reaching implications for mental and physical health as well as biodiversity. Extreme weather patterns, including natural disasters, account for a wide-range of reproductive, neuropsychiatric, and neurodegenerative conditions, emphasizing the need for neurological assessments of the brain, reproductive evaluations, and psychological interventions. Environmental exposures, including temperature variations, air quality, humidity, droughts, floods, and wildfires, pose challenges for insurers. Prolonged heat disrupts physiological homeostasis, leading to psychological distress, aggression/violence, suicide, non-suicidal self-injuries, intergenerational trauma, and increased mental health-related hospital admissions. Floods and storms are linked to post-traumatic stress disorder, eco-anxiety, ecological grief, sleep abnormalities, and depression, particularly in communities experiencing socioeconomic deprivation, forced migration, and increased urbanization. The bidirectional relationship between climate change and mental health disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, including men’s sperm quality and motility, pregnant women, and developing fetuses. Individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds face greater exposure to climate-induced psychological stressors with limited access to mental health resources, exacerbating pre-existing disparities, suicide rates, and climate-related age-based discrimination. Addressing disparities is essential to ensure equitable mental health outcomes in the face of climate change with emphasis on sociocultural, socioeconomic, and ecological contexts while considering the paradigm shifts of human intelligence and artificial intelligence.