sustainable healthcare and mental health links

Mental health and sustainable healthcare

An unlikely pairing offers potential for discovery and insight.

Mental health has been on my mind lately, largely because EHN.org and The Allegheny Front just published a large series looking at the impacts of air, water and climate pollution on our mental health.


Turns out it's a vastly under-researched and under-reported topic. We know that air pollution affects the lungs. But such pollution also affects every bodily system, including the brain.

And then there's stress: Stress of coping with a changing climate, stress of living near fracking operations, stress of fighting for clean air and water, stress of wondering whether living in a particular house or neighborhood hurts the health of your kids.

All that has an impact on mental health, too.

Mental health & healthcare: An unlikely pairing

What sort of connection, I wondered, exists between our mental health and efforts to make healthcare more sustainable and healthy?

It's an unlikely pairing, I'll admit: I can't say, for instance, how efforts by my local hospital to reduce plastic affect my mental health.

But that kind of thinking on pollution and mental health has left a collective blind spot, our reporting team found. And I wondered if something similar existed on healthcare.

It’s common for people in fracked communities to experience "worry, anxiety, and depression about lifestyle, health, safety, and financial security," a literature review on fracking and mental health reported. “Entire communities can experience collective trauma as a result of the boom/bust cycle that often occurs when industries impinge on community life."

'Stress creates its own health impacts'

A lead author of a Pennsylvania fracking study relayed a story about a community member who suddenly understood, after fracking moved in, why sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique.

"That kind of stress creates its own health impacts," the researcher told our reporter. "When we document that someone has a headache, for example, is that because of a chemical exposure or because they haven't slept and their neighbors don't trust them anymore?"

So when I searched our databases for news stories about sustainability and either healthcare or mental health, I was pleasantly surprised to find nearly 33,000 stories in the last month.

More than one third – 22,000 – focused on healthcare and sustainability. About 10,500 focused on mental health.

Shared themes and concepts

Mental health and healthcare sustainability reportingMental health and sustainable healthcare

The real shock came when our AI software mapped a representative sample of 2,869 of those stories.

They were all clustered in a tight circle, suggesting a number of shared themes and concepts.

The screengrab above shows all 2,800 stories, sorted by our software into thematic, color-coded clusters, with lines connecting related stories.

Connections with healthcare

sustainability and mental  health reporting

Stories focusing specifically on mental health, highlighted in the above screengrab, sit clustered in the southern hemisphere.

But they're not islands: Many of the mental health clusters spider into and connect with healthcare clusters.

Links to plastic pollution, climate action

mental health plastic climate links

This screengrab highlights one such cluster – stories focusing on mental health research. Notice how the links stretch up and out to touch on clusters focused on plastic pollution, climate action and universal health coverage? That's an encouraging sign.

DEHP and mental health?

I'm not one to say where the promising research or reporting on mental health and sustainable healthcare needs to happen. But I think this area offers rich potential for discovery and discussion.

I think back to an alarming bit of science published earlier this month suggesting that the phthalate DEHP, commonly added to IV tubing and bags, contributes to breast cancer mortality and recurrence.

If you're fighting breast cancer and it flares up again, that's a huge mental burden for you and your loved ones.

And if your healthcare delivery system played a small role in that recurrence? That seems worth exploring.

Biden administration bans oil and gas drilling around Chaco Canyon

The Interior Department will withdraw public lands around Chaco Canyon from new oil and gas leasing for 20 years.
Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.
climate protest sign
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

‘Climate negotiations are inherently abusive’: campaigner Brianna Craft on the struggle smaller countries face

In her memoir, the Cop delegate draws parallels with her violent childhood home and the imbalance of power in global summits.

Brazilian Amazon at risk of being taken over by mafia, ex-police chief warns

Alexandre Saraiva gives alert on organised crime in region ahead of anniversary of killings of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira.

transmission lines sunrise
Photo by Marcus on Unsplash

FERC aims to fix the grid's renewable energy backlog. Can it?

Developers and climate advocates say a proposal from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may not spur enough change.
West Virginia governor's coal empire sued by the federal government
Photo by Taton Moïse on Unsplash

West Virginia governor's coal empire sued by the federal government

The lawsuit, filed by the Justice Department, seeks millions in unpaid environmental fines as Gov. Jim Justice begins his campaign for the U.S. Senate.
guam
Photo by Lucie Rangel on Unsplash

Guam's water, power outage still remains after Typhoon Mawar

About half of the island remains without water, and about 65% is without power. It may be weeks until the utilities are fully restored, local authorities said.
phoenix from top of hill
Photo by Walter Martin on Unsplash

Arizona limits construction around Phoenix as its water supply dwindles

In what could be a glimpse of the future as climate change batters the West, officials ruled there’s not enough groundwater for projects already approved.
From our Newsroom
Supreme Court wetlands

Opinion: Supreme Court undoing 50 years’ worth of environmental progress

The Supreme Court has taken a brazen anti-regulatory turn. It’s our planet and health that will suffer.

healthcare sustainability

Reimagining healthcare to reduce pollution, tackle climate change and center justice

“We need to understand who is harmed by an economy that’s based on fossil fuels and toxic chemicals.”

plastic pollution

Recycling plastics “extremely problematic” due to toxic chemical additives: Report

Negotiations are underway for a global plastics treaty and parties differ on the role of recycling.

UN plastics treaty

Opinion: UN plastics treaty should prioritize health and climate change

Delegates should push for a treaty that takes a full-lifecycle approach to plastic pollution.

halliburton fracking

How the “Halliburton Loophole” lets fracking companies pollute water with no oversight

Fracking companies used 282 million pounds of hazardous chemicals that should have been regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act from 2014 to 2021.

President Joe Biden climate change

Op-ed: Biden’s Arctic drilling go-ahead illustrates the limits of democratic problem solving

President Biden continues to deploy conventional tactics against the highly unconventional threat of climate change.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.