Abstract:

Locally and globally, climate change is having a profound and widespread impact on public health and mental health. Psychological effects of climate change, ranging from mild stress responses to chronic stress or other mental health disorders, are generally indirect and have only recently been considered among the collection of health impacts of climate change. The effects of climate change impact the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health, with the most severe repercussions being felt by vulnerable communities (who were already disadvantaged prior to the extreme weather event or population groups who are already experiencing social, economic, and environmental disruption).
The complex exposures pathways and health risks to climate change are challenging for the public health sector’s conventional wisdom, even its role and mission in today's society. For public health (including public mental health), as for other sectors (built environment, civil security, etc.) the threats of climate change present specific challenges: (1) preparing professionals for the leading role they will be called to play in the management of risks and impacts related to climate change, (2) renewing their professional competences, and (3) developing new ways of thinking, communicating and acting in the face of public health vulnerabilities and biopsychosocial impacts linked to climate change.
In the general context of the globalization of knowledge and technologies, and in the specific context of the struggle to manage climate change, it has been recommended at the local (The 2006-2012 Quebec Action Plan on Climate Change) and global (Article 6 of the United Nations Climate Convention) levels to reinforce the adaptive capacities of ''systems'' (health, rural and urban groups, regions, etc.) impacted by climate change by means of professional education and knowledge transfer. Ours is a mental health perspective, and so we speak of whether-related disaster public health and mental health. Within this perspective, a chair has been established in eEcoLearning, Mental Health, and Climate Change in a collaboration between the Quebec National Institute of Public Health and the Psychiatry Department of the University of Montreal. The chair's mission is to explore ways to educate and apply pertinent knowledge to the management of climate change-related health impacts. More specifically, the chair studies the transfrontier application of knowledge in the contexts of climate change-sensitive psychopathology and weather-related disaster mental health and public health. The chair's program includes (1) research on the application of knowledge to climate change adaptations; (2) Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 education and eEcoLearning for mental health professionals and public health professionals; (3) increasing public awareness and offering support to vulnerable individuals, organizations, communities and regions. In this paper the author makes a detailed presentation of the chair's program, perspectives, challenges and contributions to the new research field of weather-related disaster public and mental health. The program's innovative, transfrontier vision of knowledge transfer is presented and explained. The chair's primary mission and secondary objectives are described

Keywords:

Globalized Public Health, Education, Knowledge Transfer, Public Health, Mental health, Climate Change, Adaptation, Extreme Wether Events, Preparedness.