AGU Presentation 2024: Projecting and valuing climate change impacts on anxiety and depression in the contiguous United States

This presentation will be given on December 12, 2024, at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting.  It is a short discussion of "Projecting and valuing climate change impacts on anxiety and depression in the contiguous United States."  This presentation briefly discusses some of our results, including regional-level effects of warming on Appalachia, sex-based differences, and valuation under all global warming scenarios of effects within the CONUS.

Impact/Purpose

This presentation is an overview of a body of research that ORD staff created in conjunction with OAR, as well as ICF, College of Wooster, and GWU.  The work that is being discussed is being submitted to Environmental Health Perspectives.  It is an analysis of climate change impacts on mental health disorders; specifically, anxiety and depression.  In the process of conducting the analysis, we found that there are likely to be disproportionate effects regionally in Appalachia, as well as on low-income individuals and females.  The resultant effects may lead to a 5-22% increase in days in which people living within the CONUS individually experience symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as millions to billions of dollars in treating these effects.

Citation

Gould, C., A. Belova, K. Munson, D. Keeler, M. Sluder, A. Kiesel, M. Sarofim, R. Silva, S. Anenberg, AND S. Clayton. AGU Presentation 2024: Projecting and valuing climate change impacts on anxiety and depression in the contiguous United States. American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, December 09 - 13, 2024.