April 20, 2022 – When Rachel Lendner, a 52-year-old health educator based in Teaneck, NJ, heard that this February was the warmest in history, her heart skipped a beat.”I have a physical reaction of anxiety to hearing about climate change,” she says, in part because she is a parent. “What are we doing to this planet?”A new poll from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) finds Lendner is not alone in her worries. The nationally representative poll done between March 19 and March 21 of this year shows that 51% of the 2,210 Americans surveyed are anxious about climate change and its impact on future generations.”When you read about an ice shelf the size of the island of Manhattan breaking off Antarctica, it’s a very tangible, dramatic representation of climate change’s impact,” APA President Vivian Pender, MD, said in a news release. “But there are so many unseen mental health impacts as well, whether it’s in the anxiety over our children and grandchildren’s future, or the trauma to those who are physically displaced by fires or violent storms.” Widespread Mental Health EffectsEach month, the APA does polls focusing on a topic affecting mental health, Pender told WebMD. “APA’s position for many years is that climate change is a public health problem with widespread mental health impacts,” she said.Most people polled (58%) said that climate change is already impacting the general health of Americans, and 48% said that it affects the mental health of Americans, although more were worried about the impact of climate change on the planet than on their mental health (55% vs. 39%, respectively).Pe …
Americans Anxious About Climate Change – WebMD
