Heat waves and extreme weather aren't just affecting our physical lives, there's growing evidence they're impacting our mental health too.Academic consultant for The Open University: Will Murcott, Senior Lecturer in Nursing , Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies
But researchers are now starting to understand that it's also already affecting our mental health. In the past hour or so, we've had the UK Met Office issuing its first-ever red warning for extreme heat. And it's so difficult when you go to workplace and when you try to, you know, come up with different ideas. You're so low mentally.
Charles' research also saw the heat affecting men and women differently, often due to societal factors such as traditional gender roles. For example, he found that when schools closed early on the hottest day of the year in 2022, the ones to pick up the gaps in the childcare were - you guessed it - women. This added to the mental strain many women faced.
This is true within a given city. It's true within a given region. It's true across countries around the world. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, for example, the huge storm that struck New Orleans in the United States in 2005, an academic study that looked at the experience of low-income people in that storm showed that about half of these folks experienced some kind of post-traumatic stress, and that's relative to 5% of the general population.
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