Climate Change and Mental Health (with Dr. Andreea Seritan)

Welcome to the Association for Academic Psychiatry Podcast! This podcast series is designed to highlight topics relevant to academic psychiatrists worldwide.

Our first episode — hosted by the AAP’s Communications Committee Co-Chair, Dr. Ali Abbas Asghar-Ali, a geriatric psychiatrist at Baylor College of Medicine and staff physician at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center— features a conversation on the intersection between climate change and mental health with Dr. Andreea Seritan, a geriatric psychiatrist and professor of clinical psychiatry and neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Seritan co-founded the Climate Change and Mental Health Task Force in her department, which aims to educate psychiatrists, learners, colleagues in other disciplines, and the public on the mental health impacts of climate change.

For those interested in learning more, please check out the following resources:

• 4-minute video on talking about climate change: The SECRET to talking about climate change

• American Psychiatric Association webpage: How Extreme Weather Events Affect Mental Health

• American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica report: Mental Health and Our Changing Climate, 2021 Edition

• Yale Climate Change and Health Online Certificate Program

• Academic Psychiatry Climate Change and Mental Health Education collection

  • Penaskovic KM, Zeng X, Burgin S, Sowa NA. Telehealth: Reducing Patients' Greenhouse Gas Emissions at One Academic Psychiatry Department. Acad Psychiatry. 2022 Oct;46(5):569-573. doi: 10.1007/s40596-022-01698-x [article highlighted in episode]

  • Seritan AL, Coverdale J, Brenner AM. Climate Change and Mental Health Curricula: Addressing Barriers to Teaching. Acad Psychiatry. 2022 Oct;46(5):551-555. doi: 10.1007/s40596-022-01625-0 [article highlighted in episode]

• Global Consortium of Climate and Health Education: Climate Resources for Health Education Initiative [repository of ready-made learning objectives, problem-based learning cases, and slides that can be incorporated into medical school and psychiatry residency curricula]

• Climate Psychiatry Alliance: Climate Change Resources [toolkits for patients, providers, and a climate-aware therapist directory]

• Climate Psychology Alliance

• American Academy of Pediatrics: How to Talk With Children About Climate Change

• New England Journal of Medicine module: The Climate Crisis — Health and Care Delivery

• UCSF Climate Change and Mental Health Task Force: https://psych.ucsf.edu/climatechange

• UCSF webinar on climate change and health/education/sustainability: Classes Without Quizzes: Climate Change, Human Health, and New Medical Career Paths

Audio editing for this episode was completed by Nikhita Singhal, a psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto and member of the AAP Communications Committee.

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