Disaster, Climate Change, Humanitarian Crisis and Mental Health

South Asia is among the regions most exposed to disaster and climate risk. Earthquakes, floods, landslides, heatwaves, drought, cyclones, displacement and the slow pressures of a changing climate touch millions of lives, and their effects reach far beyond physical damage into grief, trauma, anxiety, loss of livelihood and the erosion of the social fabric that holds communities together.

Disasters and humanitarian crises do not affect everyone equally. Children, women, older people, people with disabilities, the displaced and the poor often carry the heaviest psychological burden, while also having the least access to support. Mental health and psychosocial support are still too often treated as optional in emergency response.

This thematic area will explore how mental health and psychosocial support can be built into disaster preparedness, emergency response and long-term recovery. Particular attention will be given to community resilience, local first responders, culturally appropriate psychological first aid and the mental health of relief and humanitarian workers themselves.

The theme will also consider climate change as a slower, ongoing source of distress: eco-anxiety, forced migration, loss of land and livelihood, and the responsibility of mental health systems to respond to a crisis that is only beginning.