Welcome to the 22nd WCP Congress Program Scheduling

Abstract Body

Climate change is one of the most relevant problems of our era and is becoming more and more a nightmare. Its consequences on exposed biological subjects and on vulnerable human groups and societies is challenging scientists and policy makers. Rising temperatures, heat waves, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, fires, loss of forests and ice, advancement of deserts can cause human suffering and pathologies both directly and indirectly. Likewise, air wasting and pollution, that are partly due to weather changes, can induce health problems. Beyond somatic illnesses, environment-related mental disorders, as to symptoms, distress and disability, are still scarcely investigated. The effects of climate change may span both in the short and in the long term, even delayed. Some events are able to act directly at the nervous tissue level and provoke structural and functional alterations, whereas other events are able to act indirectly through the mechanisms of stress and trauma (acute and post-traumatic disorders) leading to more or less defined psychopathological patterns. The consequences of extreme or prolonged weather events may be persistent and detectable also in the subsequent generations. Vulnerable populations are at risk for mental health problems because of their geographical exposure and socio-cultural conditions. The present symposium summarizes the evidence existing worldwide about the current impact of climate change on mental health.