SynthesisAustralasian psychiatry : bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists2023
Thinking clearly about climate change and mental health.
Synthesis in Australasian psychiatry : bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Response to Barton et al. confirming that Burke et al. do not show a relationship between climate change and suicide.Australasian psychiatry : bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists · 2024Article
- Response to 'Thinking clearly about climate change and mental health'.Australasian psychiatry : bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists · 2024Article
- Research on climate change and mental health in immigrants is urgently needed: A systematic scoping review.The journal of climate change and healthReview
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo examine the quality and strength of evidence for an association between temperature increases caused by climate change and suicide used in policy documents to advocate for radical changes to healthcare systems in pursuit of decarbonisation.
methodThe designs of articles collected in a systematic review which concluded that there was an association between climate change and increased rates of suicide were analysed for their capacity to support this conclusion. Complete US data covering temperatures and suicide rates between 1968 and 2004 was aggregated and analysed using linear regression to evaluate evidence for an association between temperature and suicide.
resultsNone of the articles collected in the review has a design capable of investigating whether there is an association between temperature increases caused by climate change and rates of suicide. At the national level increased annual US temperatures were associated with a decrease in the rate of suicide, and at the state level it was common for high average temperature states to have low rates of suicide and vice versa.
conclusionsPolicy recommendations for radical changes in healthcare services have been based on misrepresented evidence. Policy makers should beware of recommendations that ignore scientific evidence to pursue faith-based goals.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.