In a world grappling with the profound challenges posed by climate change and infectious diseases, it is increasingly apparent that our emotional well-being plays a pivotal role in our ability to adapt, respond, and thrive. This article offers valuable insights into the intersection of these critical issues and the importance of emotional intelligence in navigating them by answering questions Infection Control Today (ICT) asked me to answer.
Climate change is not only affecting our physical environment but also our mental and emotional landscapes. The emotional responses that individuals and communities may experience when confronted with the impacts of climate change on infectious disease outbreaks can vary from uncertainty and isolation to grief and hopelessness. These emotional challenges underscore the need for a proactive approach to emotional well-being.
In the health care sector, particularly among infection control practitioners, the emotional toll of managing infectious diseases exacerbated by climate change is significant. Anxiety, compassion fatigue, and a sense of helplessness can take a toll on health care professionals.
These are the issues that Six Seconds addresses. Six Seconds is a nonprofit organization with a global network that aims to enhance emotional intelligence worldwide. It helps individuals become more adept at handling emotions by providing training, tools, and methods to assist them in developing these skills. Emotional intelligence is a set of learnable skills that can be measured and practiced, which can lead to improved effectiveness, improved relationships, better quality of life, and better overall well-being.
ICT: How does climate change influence the prevalence and spread of infectious diseases, and what role does infection control play in mitigating these effects?
Joshua Freedman, MCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports explain how climate change harms health through direct effects, including high temperatures, increased air pollutants, infectious diseases (vector- and waterborne), respiratory disorders, and food and water insecurity. In addition, deforestation and global warming have also reduced animal habitats, driving closer human contact with increased disease crossover risk. In addition, there are emotional and societal challenges. Communities, particularly vulnerable ones, face heightened anxiety and stress, emphasizing the need for emotional intelligence in health care responses. Effective solutions should balance technical innovation with empathetic, equitable approaches to address both the physical and emotional health impacts of climate change.
ICT: Can you discuss the emotional and psychological responses that individuals may experience when facing the impact of climate change on infectious disease outbreaks?
Here are 3 ways to bring more emotional skills to people to develop better climate change resilience:
1. Emotional literacy campaigns. Drawing from Six Seconds’ emphasis on emotional literacy, launch a campaign to recognize and understand emotions related to climate change and infectious diseases. This includes acknowledging feelings of anxiety, anger, and powerlessness but also optimism and hope to provide tools for managing these emotions effectively.
2. Community engagement initiatives for emotional well-being. Community campaigns can foster open discussions, involve local leaders, and create platforms for sharing concerns and solutions. Partnering with local organizations, mental health professionals, and community leaders can create a more comprehensive support network. This approach raises awareness and strengthens community bonds, which are essential for resilience.
3. Resilience building programs. Public health policies can incorporate training and workshops that build emotional resilience in communities. Most initiatives in mental health are clinical interventions requiring licensed health care professionals, who are in short supply. We need more programs that can be delivered by teachers, community leaders, grandparents, or youth leaders. These programs can teach coping strategies to manage stress and adapt to changing environmental and health challenges.
By integrating these emotional intelligence–focused strategies, awareness campaigns, and well-being programs, we can more effectively address the emotional aspects of climate change and infectious diseases, fostering greater awareness and resilience in communities.
JF: Uncertainty, isolation, and disruption are key features of recent global health crises that deeply affect our emotional well-being. Children and youth, in particular, have reported high levels of distress, highlighting the need to address their emotional well-being. Reflecting on trauma research, such as post–Hurricane Katrina studies, we understand that the effects of such traumatic events can be delayed, surfacing years later. This suggests a prolonged impact on mental health, necessitating long-term emotional support strategies. As climate change potentially gives rise to more global pandemics, it’s crucial to prioritize emotional intelligence tools and resilience-building practices. We need to learn the lessons from past crises to build a more robust response for the next infectious disease outbreaks and to better address emotional well-being.
ICT: Are there specific emotions or stressors related to climate change and infectious diseases that health care professionals commonly encounter, particularly those in infection control?
JF: Emotional well-being and mental health are at an all-time high burnout level in this postpandemic and climate change era. Health care professionals and others in caregiving roles are especially vulnerable because their calling is to help people in need. The enormity of the climate crisis hits health care professionals hard in 3 ways:
Anxiety and uncertainty. Health care workers often face uncertainty in managing new or evolving infectious diseases exacerbated by climate change. This uncertainty can lead to anxiety about treatment efficacy, personal safety, and patient outcomes. This can block team innovation and collaboration in the professional setting, both key elements for developing infectious disease therapies.
Compassion fatigue and emotional burnout. Without strong support and highly developed emotional skills, health care providers can develop compassion fatigue because of overexposure to people experiencing pain. This can look like a feeling of numbness, lower level of empathy, or a compromised connection with others, affecting personal and professional relationships.
Grief and hopelessness. Climate grief is a pervasive sadness and sense of loss for the future. It can lead to a sense of hopelessness, which can be especially hard for health care workers because they feel urgency to help. The feeling that individual efforts are too small in the face of global environmental issues can leave people feeling disempowered.
ICT: How can health care organizations and infection control practitioners effectively address the emotional aspects of climate change–related infectious disease challenges within their communities?
JF: Health care organizations need to address the climate of emotions that their workforce faces. The 3 concepts of mitigation, adaptation, and resilience are used by the IPCC and the US Department of Defense in the climate change space and can be adapted to serve here.
Mitigation means slowing down the process of climate change through stakeholder engagement and multilateral agreements for targets. In the health care space, mitigation could include acknowledging that climate change affects health care and infection control practitioners and setting well-being goals such as lower patient-to-caregiver ratios, increased flexibility for remote work options, better mental health support, and building a future-ready sustainable workplace.
Adaptation is the adjustment process to actual or expected climate and its effects. The adjustments are a forward-looking project to reduce risks and prepare for the impact of climate change by strengthening infrastructure and systems. Strategies include community engagement and education efforts to build emotional skills, engaging in open dialogue to build trust between institutional health and the public, and emergency preparedness skills to help reduce anxiety before health incidents.
Resilience is the ability to anticipate, absorb, accommodate, or recover from the effects of potentially harmful changes from the climate crisis. It is focused on strengthening bounce back in an evolving environment. Focusing on acute emotional health interventions such as robust emotional health support for health care workers is essential to absorb rapid change. But to support bounce back, longer-term solutions are needed. Examples include expanded emotional health services such as stress management training, peer support groups, and wellness programs, including diet, sleep, exercise, and mindfulness training, which can refuel health care workers with nonclinical interventions.
ICT: What strategies or resources are available for health care workers to cope with the emotional toll of managing infectious disease outbreaks exacerbated by climate change?
JF: The most important thing to know is that emotional well-being skills are learnable and measurable. These are not skills you are born with, and most of us never learned them in school. But everyone can strengthen these skills and be more resilient in the face of climate change. Health care, an industry facing unprecedented levels of burnout since the COVID-19 pandemic, is especially ready for this. Check out Six Seconds tools and methods to build emotional intelligence skills in the workplace:
Emotional literacy. This skill involves recognizing and labeling emotions
accurately. Research says one of the best ways to de-escalate challenging emotions is a Six Seconds technique called Name it to tame it. Using a model such as Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions as a guide, when they can identify and express their feelings more clearly, health care workers can feel and release the emotion crucial in high-stress environments.
Optimism and resilience. These skills are reframing challenging situations and recovering more quickly from challenging experiences. One Six Seconds model that is helpful is known as TIE. TIE stands for temporary, isolated, and effort. This model helps health care workers remember that they have some control and helps them shift from being passive to actively finding solutions for their setbacks.
Navigate emotions. This skill helps us to understand the purpose of emotions and how to use them wisely. Many people want to categorize good and bad emotions, but all emotions are data. They are messages to ourselves. The Six Seconds VET model is useful for navigating emotions. VET stands for validate, explore, and transform. Validate is naming and accepting the emotion. Explore is understanding what the emotion is trying to tell you. Transform is how you will use this information to make better choices. Health care workers can apply tools to manage emotions such as fear and anxiety, transforming them into helpful signals rather than overwhelming experiences.
ICT: How can public health campaigns and policies better address the emotional component of climate change and infectious diseases to foster greater awareness and resilience in communities?
JF: Creating greater public awareness campaigns about emotional well-being and climate change is essential. Teaching individuals to pay attention to their mental health and build skills through awareness initiatives can foster resilience in local communities.
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