University College London, Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources, London, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2022 Dec 1;17(12):e0277286. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277286. eCollection 2022.
Climate change brings an increase in temperatures and a higher frequency of heatwaves. Both have been linked to a rise in suicide rates and violent crime on a population level. However, little is known about the link between mental health and ambient temperatures on an individual level and for particular subgroups. Overheating poses health risks to children and disturbs sleep; leading to the expectation that parents are more worried about their homes getting too hot than non-parents. Two online survey studies (N = 1000 each) were conducted in the UK and the US to understand to what extent parents and an age-matched comparison group without children are worried about overheating and how they differ in their mitigation actions. Findings did not support the main hypotheses around greater overheating worry amongst parents in general, mothers or those with very young children. However, parents indicated a greater likelihood to upgrade or install air-conditioning (US) and to get electric fans (UK). Parents in the UK indicated using more mitigation options to cope with overheating than non-parents. Parents in the US, whilst not reporting doing more actions, were more likely to use air-conditioning to deal with overheating than non-parents. Finally, those parents who mentioned health impacts on children as a reason for worry about overheating, were more concerned about overheating than parents who had other reasons than children's health as a reason for being concerned about overheating. In summary, parental status might have implications for cooling energy use and concern for children's health might increase overheating worry; however, many open questions remain.
气候变化带来了温度的升高和热浪的高发频率。这两者都与人群层面的自杀率和暴力犯罪的上升有关。然而，人们对个体层面和特定亚群体的心理健康与环境温度之间的联系知之甚少。过热会对儿童的健康造成威胁，并扰乱睡眠；因此，人们认为父母比没有孩子的父母更担心家里过热。在英国和美国进行了两项在线调查研究（每个研究 1000 人），以了解父母和年龄匹配的无子女对照组对过热的担忧程度，以及他们在缓解措施方面的差异。研究结果并未支持父母普遍、母亲或有年幼子女的父母过热担忧程度更高的主要假设。然而，父母表示更有可能升级或安装空调（美国）和电风扇（英国）。英国的父母表示，他们使用了更多的缓解措施来应对过热，而不是没有孩子的父母。美国的父母虽然没有报告采取更多的措施，但他们更有可能使用空调来应对过热，而不是没有孩子的父母。最后，那些提到孩子健康受影响是担心过热的原因的父母，比那些担心孩子健康以外的原因的父母更担心过热。总之，父母身份可能会影响冷却能源的使用，对孩子健康的关注可能会增加对过热的担忧；然而，仍有许多悬而未决的问题。
