Climate change in small island developing states: caring for youth's mental health (vol 7, pg 373, 2023)

Unabated climate change has led to unprecedented changes to the daily lives if people living in small island developing states. Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable as they are affected during crucial developmental phases of life and will experience cumulative exposure. Climate change affects children directly and indirectly. Effects can vary from climate-related distress to increased risk of onset or worsening of existing mental health disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, phobias, substance misuse, and sleep disorders. 1 Vergunst F Berry HL Climate change and children's mental health: a developmental perspective. Clin Psychol Sci. 2022; 10: 767-785 Crossref PubMed Scopus (28) Google Scholar , 2 Solmi M Radua J Olivola M et al. Age at onset of mental disorders worldwide: large-scale meta-analysis of 192 epidemiological studies. Mol Psychiatry. 2022; 27: 281-295 Crossref PubMed Scopus (408) Google Scholar Correction to Lancet Child Adolesc Health 2023; 7: 373–74Gordon-Strachan G, Ng Shiu R, Smith J, Harrison A, Walker S. Climate change in small island developing states: caring for youth's mental health. Lancet Child Adol Health 2023; 7: 373–74—In this Comment, the third sentence of the second paragraph should have referred to half of extreme weather events in the past 30 years occurring since 2011. This correction has been made as of May 17, 2023, and the printed version is correct. Full-Text PDF