Weather Variability and Climate Change Impacts on the Mental Health of a Seaside Community

Abstract

Aims: To assess weather variability and climate change impacts on the mental health of a small fishing community in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Study Design: To this study, a fishing community strongly familiarized with the region was selected. Interviews were held with the most active fishermen members among the community. Place and Duration of Study: Interviews were held in the Association of Mussel Producers and Fishermen of Cocanha's beach (MAPEC), in the municipality of Caraguatatuba, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, between 2009 and. Methodology: We chose 13 individuals to interview, all of them small-scale fishermen and mussel producers who were born at Cocanha beach. Their perception on the changing environment -as well as the setbacks in work activities and daily life -were codified and analyzed with NVivo 10 software. Health data were collected in a municipality level. We acquired hospital admissions for mental health and behavioral disorders from the Nacional Health System (DATASUS). We performed trend analysis (period 1998 to 2014) for rates of incidence of mental and behavioral Original Research Articledisorders due to alcohol use, psychoactive substance use, Schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders. We also extracted social-economic data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Results: The results indicated that the morbidities related to mental health problems showed a significant increase in hospital admissions, and were higher than the average rate in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and that the interviewees were aware of ongoing environmental changes such as: marine water temperature, sea water levels, beach landscaping and intensity of precipitation. Conclusion: Environmental changes related to climate change have a strong impact on the daily lives of the interviewees, on their mental health and on use of natural resources. The perception of the communities directly using natural resources should be considered in the assessment and monitoring of climate change.

The Importance of the Concept of Subjectivity: New Lines of Research

“…Our research on Brazilian consciousness has led us to mistrust the expression of anxiety and depression; and the construction of denial or silence, as affirmed by Randall. Research we have carried out (Seixas, 2008;Seixas et al, 2010Seixas et al, , 2012Seixas et al, , 2014Seixas et al, , 2016Seixas & Nunes, 2017), shows a tell-tale picture of unnamed symptoms in the population as a whole that are causing people to seek help from public and private health services. Antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications are being increasingly consumed by the Brazilian population.…”

Subjectivity in a context of environmental change: opening new dialogues in mental health research

“…The first author of this paper carried out the scientific research below. It includes a study of fishing communities in the densely populated municipality of Caraguatatuba -situated in the North Coast region of the State of São Paulo during the last decade (Seixas et al 2016;Seixas et al 2014;Seixas et al 2012). This study was conducted in a geographical area that has undergone significant environmental change over a short time span, degrading the physical and mental health of individual community members with direct impacts on their subjective well-being and quality of life.…”

“…Thus when we analyzed the data from the Brazilian Health System in relation to the mental health of the residents of the municipalities of the North Coast of São Paulo, especially the hospital admissions between 2000 and 2010, there was an unsurprisingly higher than the average rate in Caraguatatuba when compared to the average for state of São Paulo. Interviews with health care professionals further showed that in the same period, from the patients who sought help from mental health services in the municipality, 60% were diagnosed with depression (Seixas et al, 2012;Seixas et al, 2014;Seixas et al, 2016).…”

A Study on the Visual Comfort of Urban Building Colors under Overcast and Rainy Weather

“…Particularly in certain countries and regions, prolonged and persistent rainy weather can lead to reduced environmental visibility, causing visual recognition difficulties [12]. This results in anxiety and stress among residents [13,14], subtly affecting the visual comfort of urban dwellers and potentially even impacting their psychological health further [2,[15][16][17]. Therefore, in order to enhance the urban visual environment and harness the positive effects of color on perception [18], improving the visual comfort of urban architectural colors in overcast and rainy weather conditions is an urgent issue to be addressed in current urban color planning.…”