Climate Change and the Health of Older Adults

The climate crisis and related environmental crises impact human health and the health system in complex, interrelating ways. Paradoxically, the health system negatively affects the environment and contributes to the climate crisis. Healthcare practitioners can support patients and mitigate these risks by incorporating a planetary health lens into their practice, which necessitates understanding relevant community- and patient-level risks and considering mitigation and adaptation throughout their practice. Older adults and individuals with pre-existing psychiatric disorders are independently both high-risk groups that are predisposed to the specific mental and physical health impacts of climate change. This chapter explores these impacts at the intersection of mental health and aging and gives specific recommendations at the patient-, practice-, and system-levels for how healthcare professionals can promote health in the face of the climate crisis.