Concurrent heatwave and drought events may have larger health impacts than each event separately; however, no US-based studies have examined differential mental health impacts of compound drought and heatwave events in pediatric populations.
To examine the spatial patterns of mood disorders and suicide-related emergency department (ED) visits in children during heatwave, drought, and compound heatwave and drought events. We tested whether the occurrence of compound heatwave and drought events have a synergistic (multiplicative) effect on the risk of mental health related outcomes in children as compared to the additive effect of each individual climate hazard. Lastly, we identified household and community-level determinants of geographic variability of high psychiatric burden.
Sewell, K., Paul, S., De Polt, K. et al. Impacts of compounding drought and heatwave events on child mental health: insights from a spatial clustering analysis. Discov Ment Health 4, 1 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44192-023-00055-0