Getting to know PLOS Mental Health: Environmental Impacts

Over the last few months of our ‘Getting to know PLOS Mental Health‘ series, we have heard from our Section Editors Gloria Wong (Community Mental Health), Vania Martinez (Epidemiology of Mental Health), Luke Beardon (Neurodiversity and Mental Health) and Sandersan Onie (Lived Experience and Advocacy). Next up we hear from Section Editor Charles Ogunbode, who leads our ‘Environmental Impacts’ Section alongside Sherilee Harper…

Please tell us a little about yourself

[CO] I am an Assistant Professor in Applied Psychology at the University of Nottingham, UK. My disciplinary ‘home’ is in the field of Environmental Psychology. As an undergraduate, I completed a degree in wildlife management at Nigeria’s oldest university, Ibadan, with the intent of pursuing a career in nature conservation. I developed a fascination with animals and nature at a young age. When I learned about the global problems with environmental pollution and unsustainable consumption of natural resources at school, I went home and asked my parents what we could do to protect nature.

At the end of my first degree, it was strongly evident to me that understanding human behaviour and decision-making processes is critical to protecting nature. Around this time, I also serendipitously encountered a book about a budding new field called Conservation Psychology. Reading that book led me directly to the work I do now, which largely focuses on the psychological aspects of climate and environmental change. Much of my research is international in scope and concerned with understanding what motivates people to act in ways that produce environmental benefits, as well as how environmental risks can impact our mental health and wellbeing.

What are your main areas of interest?

[CO] One of my primary areas of interest at present is the relationship between climate change and mental health. Climate change is amplifying mental health challenges around the world. Yet, our understanding of the various ways that climate change impacts mental health, and the mechanisms by which these impacts are conveyed, is far less advanced than what we know about impacts on physical health, for example.

I am especially intrigued by the questions of justice, equity, and inclusion that arise at the nexus of climate change and mental health research. Neither climate nor mental health science has a stellar history with inclusivity. The confluence of the two disciplines into an emerging field of climate mental health is an opportunity for reform – the kind that uplifts the voices and experiences of the most vulnerable groups, values the knowledge of the global majority, and fosters a research agenda aimed at translating knowledge into socially just national and international policies.

Why did you agree to join PLOS Mental Health as a Section Editor?

[CO] It is exciting to be in on the ground floor of a new venture. Joining PLOS Mental Health as a Section Editor presented me with a wonderful opportunity to help curate, and present the world with, some of the exciting research going on in climate mental health.

What kind of submissions would you like to see in the Community Mental Health section/what do you think are the most pressing questions of your field at the moment?

[CO] The character of climate- and environment-related scholarship often tends toward coloniality. I would like the Environmental Impacts section of PLOS Mental Health to receive submissions that incorporate critical, decolonial, and anti-colonial perspectives; showcase empirical techniques that trouble and disrupt the status quo. I hope to see more studies led by minoritised groups across the Global North and South, and studies involving large-scale collaborations among Global South researchers. My vision for the PLOS Mental Health Environmental Impacts section is to be an outlet for scholarship that sets high ethical and intellectual standards for the field.

I would like the Environmental Impacts section of PLOS Mental Health to receive submissions that incorporate critical, decolonial, and anti-colonial perspectives; showcase empirical techniques that trouble and disrupt the status quo…

Check out the latest content from PLOS Mental Health. Some of our Environmental Impacts highlights include:

• Ecological grief in the Fernald Community Cohort: A pilot study
  

• Examining recurrent hurricane exposure and psychiatric morbidity in Medicaid-insured pregnant populations

The post Getting to know PLOS Mental Health: Environmental Impacts appeared first on Speaking of Medicine and Health.