The Climate Change, Place and Mental Health Incubator is a cross-disciplinary program focused on understanding the relationship between the built environment and mental health within the context of climate change in Australia. It aims to:
A secondary aim is to build awareness amongst the public and policymakers about the intersections between climate change, place, community, and mental health, with the intention to cultivate capacity to respond and mobilise action and policy integration in these areas.
The project will be using multiple sources of data with a focus on Participatory Action Research, including the use of interdisciplinary surveys, working with existing linked data sets and big data, and employing a mixed-methods approach.
There will be the development of a 'Policy and Community Advisory Network' and the co-design of a scalable community-based intervention to increase place-based psychological resilience.
Bower, M., Scott, L. M., Smout, S., Donohoe-Bales, A., Stapinski, L. A., Bryant, G., Jegasothy, E., Bailie, R., Haddad, S., Brambilla, A., Howard, A., McClellan, J., Swain, J., McGrath, L., & Daniel, L. (2025)
Introduction Where a person lives, the characteristics of their housing and neighbourhood environment influence their exposure to climate-related hazards and vulnerability to associated mental health impacts. This suggests that the built environment may be a promising focus for integrated policy responses to climate change and public mental health challenges. However, few empirical studies have focused on the role of the built environment as an important mediator of climate-attributable mental health burden. The proposed scoping review seeks to identify and synthesise existing conceptual models and frameworks linking climate change to mental health via built environment pathways. We aim to provide a preliminary overview of the housing and neighbourhood pathways through which climate change may impact mental health, which will inform future empirical work in this emerging area of research.
Methods and analysis A systematic scoping review of the global peer-reviewed and grey literature will be conducted in accordance with Arksey and O’Malley’s methodological framework and Joanna Briggs Institute recommendations. Included articles must present a conceptual model or framework incorporating relevant built environment pathways through which climate change may impact mental health and well-being. Relevant models and frameworks will be identified through systematic searches (for English-language reports) of Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science and grey literature databases. Two reviewers will independently screen the article titles, abstracts and full texts, with conflicts resolved by a third reviewer. Data extraction will occur using a predefined template. The presentation of findings will conform to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews, including a narrative synthesis of the role of housing and neighbourhood factors in the relationship between climate change and mental health, as identified from the existing literature. The review will lay essential foundations for future empirical research and place-based policy responses to the mental health consequences of a changing climate.
Ethics and dissemination The scoping review will be a secondary analysis of published data, for which ethics approval is not required. The results will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication and targeted distribution to stakeholders involved in climate change, built environment and health research and policymaking.
Bower, M., Dawkins, J., Scott, L., & McClellan, J. (2025, January). Submission to the Homes NSW 'Homes for NSW Plan' Discussion Paper. Incubator investigators, University of Sydney and Two Things Consultancy.
Bower, M., Daniel, L., Howard, A., Brambilla, A., Haddad, S., & Donohoe-Bales, A. (2023, October). Submission to the Australian Government Department of Social Services on the National Housing and Homelessness Plan. University of Sydney and University of South Australia.
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