Building a pan-Canadian research network to address the mental health consequences of climate change

Climate change affects mental health through direct, indirect, and overarching mechanisms. It acts as a "threat amplifier" by compounding social injustices. Women, youth, older adults, individuals with pre-existing mental illness, Indigenous People, racialized community members, and land-based workers have all been identified to be at particular risk of mental health consequences of climate change. To date, researchers have focused on studying how climate change impacts mental health. Attention is increasingly being turned to "adaptation," i.e., methods through which individuals, communities, and institutions can be supported in coping with climate change. We will hold a virtual meeting series that brings together mental health providers, researchers, policy makers, and stakeholders with lived experience of being members of a group at high-risk to experience mental health consequences of climate change. This meeting series is a response to calls for greater collaboration between clinicians, researchers, and policy makers to develop adaptation strategies to bolster mental health in the face of climate change. Over the course of five meetings, adaptation will be collectively defined, and discussed in relation to the direct, indirect, and overarching impacts of climate change on mental health. A modified web-based Delphi approach will be used in between meetings to distill discussion into a list of research priorities. At the final meeting, the Delphi results will inform the development of a list of research priorities, and a pan-Canadian research network will be established to foster ongoing collaboration amongst participants and their networks to act on these priorities moving forward. Building a pan-Canadian research network to address the mental health consequences of climate change will help catalyze future research into clinical and policy responses to support adaptation efforts that bolster mental health.