FREE WEBINAR: Keeping the Future in Mind: Climate-related mental health and young people

JOIN US ON 8th SEPTEMBER, 1-2PM (AEST)

The recently released Geneva Charter for Well-Being (WHO, 2021) speaks to the need for urgent, ubiquitous, and global actions to promote health and wellbeing located within systems of power and influence, as well as to halt potentially devasting impacts of global phenomena such as climate change.

Climate change can impact mental health directly through exposure to extreme weather events or traumatic events such as floods and bushfires which have ravaged Australia in recent times. Indirect effects are social, political, and economic determinants of mental health including unemployment, poverty, housing, access to nature and food insecurity.

Australia’s recent census data paints a grim picture of young people and mental health with 2 in five people (39.6%) aged 16-24 years experiencing a mental disorder over a 12-month period. Similarly, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) most recent report into climate change, mental health and psychosocial support, reports a strong correlation between a rise in mental health issues with climate change impacts, such as extreme weather events which influence the determinants of wellbeing, especially for priority population. Young people are a priority population group particularly affected by climate change and their expressions of eco-grief, sadness and depression are natural responses to devasting contexts. Young people are likewise at the forefront of climate action, and this has been associated with positive mental health wellbeing.

So, what are solutions to climate-related mental health wellbeing for young people? How can health promotion support individual, as well as systems level, resilience to climate change?

Join us on R U OK Day 8th September 1-2pm to hear from a panel of experts as they provide insights from research and health promotion practice to address these pressing questions for the 21st century.

Panel presenters:

Aileen Thoms, Director Primary Health and Innovations Kooweerup Regional Health Service.

Hasini Gunasiri, PhD candidate and researcher in climate-related mental health and young people, Deakin University.

Sue Noy, Associate Lecturer, School of Life and Environmental Science and Research Fellow, School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University.