Climate change is negatively impacting the mental health of populations. This scoping review aims to assess the available literature related to climate change and mental health across the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) five global research priorities for protecting human health from climate change. We conducted a scoping review to identify original research studies related to mental health and climate change using online academic databases. We assessed the quality of studies where appropriate assessment tools were available. We identified 120 original studies published between 2001 and 2020. Most studies were quantitative (n = 67), cross-sectional (n = 42), conducted in high-income countries (n = 87), and concerned with the first of the WHO global research priorities—assessing the mental health risks associated with climate change (n = 101). Several climate-related exposures, including heat, humidity, rainfall, drought, wildfires, and floods were associated with psychological distress, worsened mental health, and higher mortality among people with pre-existing mental health conditions, increased psychiatric hospitalisations, and heightened suicide rates. Few studies (n = 19) addressed the other four global research priorities of protecting health from climate change (effective interventions (n = 8); mitigation and adaptation (n = 7); improving decision-support (n = 3); and cost estimations (n = 1)). While climate change and mental health represents a rapidly growing area of research, it needs to accelerate and broaden in scope to respond with evidence-based mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Background The study estimated service coverage for severe mental disorders (psychosis, bipolar disorder and moderate-severe depression), globally and regionally, using data collected from the Mental Health Atlas 2017. Methods Service coverage was defined as the proportion of people with a disorder contacting a mental health service among those estimated to have the disorder during a 12-month period. We drew upon 12-month service utilisation data from the Mental Health Atlas 2017. Expected prevalent cases of individual disorders were estimated using the disorder-specific prevalence rate estimates of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 and total population sizes. Methods for assessing the validity of country-reported service utilisation data were developed and applied. Outcomes From 177 countries, 50 countries provided reliable service coverage estimates for psychosis, along with 56 countries for bipolar disorder, and 65 countries for depression. The mean service coverage for psychosis was lowest in low- [10.9% (95% confidence interval (CI) 3.3–30.4)] and lower middle-income countries [21.5% (95% CI 11.9–35.7)] and highest in high-income countries [59.5% (95% CI 42.9–74.1)]. Service coverage for bipolar disorder ranged between 3.1% (95% CI 0.8–11.5) and 10.4% (95% CI 6.7–15.8). Mean service coverage for moderate-severe depression ranged between 2.9% (95% CI 1.3–6.3) for low-income countries and 31.1% (95% CI 18.3–47.6) for high-income countries. Interpretation The reporting method utilised by the Mental Health Atlas appears to be reliable for psychosis but not for depression. This method of estimating service coverage provides progress in tracking an important indicator for mental health; however, it highlights that considerable work is needed to further develop global mental health information systems.