Ripon Mondal, a 19-year-old university student from central Bangladesh, is grappling with the aftermath of a devastating drought that decimated his family’s watermelon crop in 2022. As they strive to recover, the weight of his father’s financial concerns looms large.
“I can feel my father’s mental distress,” Mondal shared. “He has to pay for our studies, and sometimes I feel terrible about the debts piling up.”
Residing in a village within the Kamarkhola Union area, surrounded by four rivers, the Mondal family faces a stark reality: limited access to mental health services, a predicament all too familiar for countless Bangladeshis, particularly those residing in remote and rural regions.
“I would have to cross at least two rivers and travel a long distance to reach a hospital where I can find a psychologist,” Mondal lamented.
In the face of escalating climate change consequences in Bangladesh, ranging from droughts and floods to rising sea levels and storms, concerns are growing within the country’s healthcare community and organizations regarding the deteriorating mental health of its citizens.
Mental health experts emphasize that extreme weather events and climate-related disasters can either trigger or exacerbate conditions like anxiety and depression. However, they note that these issues remain inadequately understood in Bangladesh, with a glaring shortage of trained psychologists.
A government-conducted survey in 2019 revealed that nearly a fifth of adults in Bangladesh grapple with mental health issues.
In a groundbreaking study, funded by the World Bank and published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal in February, researchers shed light on how exposure to higher temperatures, humidity, and worsening floods heightens the likelihood of individuals suffering from both anxiety and depression. Yet, Bangladesh, a nation of approximately 170 million people, boasts only a few hundred mental health practitioners, according to Syed Tanveer Rahman, a psychology professor at the University of Dhaka.
“When one steps beyond large cities like Dhaka, access to mental health care is still quite limited,” Rahman observed.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bangladesh did not respond to requests for comment on the situation. Nevertheless, the government has acknowledged the toll that climate change can take on mental health, with its 2022 adaptation plan pledging to monitor the issue, particularly focusing on women and disabled individuals.
Efforts to address this crisis are underway, with mental health professionals, NGOs, and start-ups harnessing technology and training volunteers to aid rural and isolated communities. For example, the for-profit mental healthcare platform, Moner Bondhu, has partnered with the UN Development Programme to offer psychological support to residents in Dacope, one of the most remote and climate-vulnerable areas of Bangladesh’s southern coast.
Disasters have become alarmingly frequent in this region, leaving residents struggling to cope with successive losses and damages, noted Tawhida Shiropa, CEO of Moner Bondhu, who founded the start-up in 2016.
“While we usually think of resilience as rebuilding physical assets and infrastructure, disasters also impact the mind in myriad ways,” she emphasized.
Globally, increasing attention and research on the connection between climate change impacts and mental health have given rise to terms like “climate anxiety” and “eco-grief.” Sally Weintrobe, a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance in the UK, highlighted that psychological responses to climate disasters, be it hurricanes or flooding, are shaped by how individuals relate within their communities and the resources available to them.
In poorer, climate-vulnerable nations such as Bangladesh, individuals not only suffer the consequences but also lack the means to rebuild their lives, Weintrobe stressed.
The World Bank has issued a stark warning, projecting that by 2050, 13 million people within Bangladesh may be displaced within the country due to climate change.
Psychologists in Bangladesh argue that the anxiety and grief induced by climate change often stem from a pervasive sense of helplessness rooted in the economic circumstances of communities. Moreover, mental health issues and treatment continue to carry stigma, leading many, especially in rural areas, to seek help from traditional medicine and healers.
Depon Chandra Sarker, a child psychologist at Patuakhali Medical College in south-central Bangladesh, explained that seeking support for mental health problems remains uncommon in local communities “unless someone gets really out of control.”
In remote regions, including the disaster-prone south, most district and subdistrict hospitals lack mental health professionals, Sarker added. To address this scarcity, the government and NGOs conduct mental health campaigns, where psychotherapists visit remote communities to provide information and counseling.
However, several psychologists argue that one-off initiatives fall short in serving climate-affected communities in need of sustained support. Leveraging technology is seen as a promising solution. The country’s climate adaptation plan recommends expanding telehealth services, delivered via phone or online, for individuals grappling with climate-related mental health challenges.
Moner Bondhu is already training grassroots volunteers to connect those in need of climate-related psychological support with counselors over the phone. Meanwhile, government-employed professionals, like psychiatrist Mehedi Hasan based in Bagerhat, hold virtual meetings on platforms like Zoom to educate health workers and emergency responders about the mental health care necessary for disaster-affected individuals.
“You cannot erase the world’s stressors causing you distress,” Hasan affirmed. “For the most vulnerable, the focus should be on how to remain functional despite them.”
