College of Social Work, University of Tennessee, 306 Henson Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Department of Social Work, College of Health, Community and Policy, University of Texas at San Antonio, 501 W. Cesar Chavez Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78207, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 May 14;17(10):3411. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17103411.
The connection between mental health and weather extremes is a public health concern, but less studied to date than physical health. This exploratory study examines the mental health impacts of two kinds of weather extremes increasingly linked to climate change-summer heat waves and extreme winter weather-in a low- to middle-income population in the Southeastern U.S. The distribution of mental health impacts, and potential pathways to them, are examined with a focus on race. Data are from a random-sample survey of 426 participants and are analyzed with bivariate statistics and path analysis. Self-reported mental health impacts, in both seasons, were common in our study, with White participants tending to report worse impacts than participants who identified with other racial groups. Physical health had direct effects on mental health across several models, overall and by racial group. For summer heat waves, concern about climate change and social cohesion had direct and indirect effects, respectively, on mental health in White participants only. For extreme winter weather, preparedness had a direct negative effect on mental health in White, but not Black, participants. Results suggest that there may be racial differences in the influence of human and social capital factors on mental health related to weather extremes, warranting further study of this critical topic and with larger racial subgroup samples.
心理健康与极端天气之间的关系是一个公共卫生关注点，但迄今为止，与身体健康相比，这方面的研究还较少。本探索性研究在美国东南部的中低收入人群中，考察了与气候变化日益相关的两种极端天气（夏季热浪和极端冬季天气）对心理健康的影响。研究重点关注种族，分析了心理健康影响的分布情况及其潜在途径。数据来自对 426 名参与者的随机抽样调查，采用双变量统计和路径分析进行分析。在我们的研究中，两个季节的自我报告心理健康影响都很常见，与其他种族群体相比，白人参与者往往报告的影响更差。在几个模型中，身体健康对心理健康都有直接影响，总体上以及按种族群体划分都是如此。对于夏季热浪，对气候变化和社会凝聚力的担忧分别对白人参与者的心理健康有直接和间接影响。对于极端冬季天气，在白人参与者中，准备情况对心理健康有直接的负面影响，但在黑人参与者中则没有。结果表明，在与极端天气相关的心理健康方面，人类和社会资本因素的影响可能存在种族差异，这一关键问题值得进一步研究，并需要更大的种族亚组样本。
