Hot weather has been linked to an increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors among young Australians, new research shows, prompting calls for an overhaul of public health approaches to higher temperatures. The number of young people in NSW presenting to hospitals for suicidal thoughts and behaviors increases with the temperature , a new analysis of emergency department (ED) presentations shows. Researchers studied more than 55,000 suicidality presentations made by young people, aged 12 to 24, at EDs during the warmer months of November to March, from 2012 to 2019.
The analysis, published in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry , found ED visits by young people for suicidal thoughts or behaviors increased by 1.3% for every 1°C rise in daily mean temperature (DMT). The increases occurred across a full range of temperatures and on single hot days, not only during heat waves when factors like poor sleep were more likely to be an issue, said lead author Dr.
Cybele Dey, a psychiatrist and conjoint lecturer at UNSW Sydney. "The impact on the very first day where the temperature is hotter than usual is just as bad as each subsequent day, and the effect starts at a more moderate temperature than expected," said Dr. Dey.
"This is not about concern about climate change affecting the mental health of young people, this is about hot weather itself affecting them." For example, on days with a 24-hour mean temperature of 21.9°C—the average DMT for the study period—there.