October 10th marks World Mental Health Day, with this year’s event focusing on “access to services – mental health in catastrophes and emergencies”.

To highlight the importance of this theme, Kat Runnalls, PhD student at the Centre, introduces her research into the impacts climate change can have on the mental health of parents and carers.

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From a physiological and epidemiological perspective, the links between climate change and health have garnered a lot of attention in the research literature over the last few decades.

For example, the effects of extreme weather events on marginalised communities are now widely documented, including how they can influence the health and neurological development of babies.

But when it comes to mental health, the pace is more…glacial.

Empirical research about the impacts of climate change on mental wellbeing is now slowly growing however – after a long period of being overlooked. But there are still significant gaps in research, specifically relating to the mental health of parents and carers.

As a new PhD student, joining the University of Exeter and the European Centre for Environment & Human Health has been full speed ahead – my summer of sunshine in Cornwall feels like a distant dream.

Yet, as I watch autumn roll in, like most other new researchers who have joined this year, my very first task has been to scour the literature and find out what is really happening in this area.

So, what did I find?

A lot of work has been done to boost understanding of the complex relationships between mental health, climate change, and extreme weather events, particularly for pregnant women. But research with parents – specifically beyond the perinatal period – is scarce.

We understand even less about the impacts of heat on this group, which really surprised me because, isn’t our planet meant to be getting hotter?

According to the World Meteorological Organisation, 2024 was the warmest year on record and the first year the global mean temperature rose 1.5˚C above the pre-industrial baseline.

On the 19th of July this year, Britain reached 40˚C, just as children were finishing school for summer holidays. Sounds lovely, a nice hot summer holiday, but what is the reality of being faced with those temperatures as a parent?

Previous research has shown that heat can have negative impacts on mental health: most of us can probably relate to the frustrations of being stuck in a hot car or losing concentration in a stuffy, airless office. And for many parents across the UK, air conditioning or ventilation at home is likely to be a luxury.

Perhaps just as importantly, many families still struggle to access the natural environments, such as green and blue spaces, that might help to ease the pressures of high temperatures and humidity. Instead, both parents and children are subjected to urban heat islands and poor indoor air quality.

How might these factors affect their mental health? Over the next four years, my research will gather new data to tackle this question.

For now, however, the summer holidays are over for another year. On this World Mental Health Day, let’s reach out to our parents and carers of children of all ages and ensure that as we move into the next set of warmer seasons, we share our spaces, support each other, and bring new insights into this arena to make change for better mental health.