Giving Compass' Take:
- Heather Chapman reviews new data looking into PTSD among wildfire survivors - and the implications this has for climate change.
- What are other health factors to consider in regard to climate change and uncontrolled fires?
- Learn about wildfires and climate change.
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Post-traumatic stress disorder is most commonly associated with war veterans, but it's increasingly a problem for survivors of weather disasters. The 2018 Camp Fire, for example, was the deadliest in California history, killing at least 42 people and destroying more than 7,000 homes.
"A study conducted by scientists at the University of California San Diego that was published in February in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that an overwhelming number of Camp Fire survivors were suffering from various mental health disorders, most prominently PTSD," Andrea Stanley reports for The Washington Post.
Senior study author Jyoti Mishra, a UC San Diego psychiatry professor, told Stanley they had found "striking and significant" numbers of Camp Fire survivors with PTSD, and that the phenomenon "really shows how climate change is a mental health stressor."
Read the full article about wildfire PTSD by Heather Chapman at The Rural Blog.