Climate Change, Place and Mental Health Incubator

The Climate Change, Place and Mental Health Incubator is a cross-disciplinary program focused on understanding the relationship between the built environment and mental health within the context of climate change in Australia. It aims to:

• Identify the causal pathways and intersections between climate change, place, and mental health.
• Determine vulnerabilities and protective factors at individual, community, and place-based levels.

A secondary aim is to build awareness amongst the public and policymakers about the intersections between climate change, place, community, and mental health, with the intention to cultivate capacity to respond and mobilise action and policy integration in these areas.

This research adopts a place-based framework, recognising the place and community a person lives within will influence their degree of exposure to slow-onset climate change hazards (e.g., extreme heat, cold, or drought) and related mental health impacts.

Research approach and community solutions

The project will be using multiple sources of data with a focus on Participatory Action Research, including the use of interdisciplinary surveys, working with existing linked data sets and big data, and employing a mixed-methods approach.

There will be the development of a 'Policy and Community Advisory Network' and the co-design of a scalable community-based intervention to increase place-based psychological resilience.