Mental Health and Climate Change in Kenya

Executive Summary

Climate change has emerged as a profound mental health crisis in Kenya. Research by KEMRI-Wellcome Trust reveals that droughts, floods, and extreme weather are triggering widespread psychological distress, depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation. A survey of nearly 15,000 women found alarming links between droughts, heat waves, and elevated suicidal thoughts, while 800 women in Nairobi's informal settlements showed strong associations between extreme weather and clinical anxiety and depression. Despite this evidence, Kenya's healthcare system remains unprepared, lacking data collection, mental health integration into primary care, and policies linking climate adaptation with psychological wellbeing. Rural farmers, pastoralists, women, and children bear the heaviest burden while lacking adequate support systems. Without urgent action, Kenya faces a generational mental health catastrophe undermining economic productivity and social cohesion.

The Climate-Mental Health Connection

Understanding the Crisis

Experts from KEMRI-Wellcome Trust warn that climate change is intensifying mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and trauma disorders in affected communities. Acute events like floods and storms trigger PTSD and grief, while prolonged droughts and food insecurity lead to chronic stress and hopelessness.

Displacement and social disruption further fuel family conflict and substance abuse. The WHO notes that low and middle-income countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, are most affected due to limited access to mental health services.

Emerging Research Evidence

Recent scientific studies provide compelling evidence of the climate-mental health connection in Kenya:

• Women and Suicidal Ideation: A survey of nearly 15,000 women produced concerning signs, with droughts and heat waves appearing linked to much higher levels of suicidal thoughts.
• Urban Vulnerability: Research on 800 women in informal settlements found significant associations between anxiety and depression and experiences of colder-than-usual temperatures
• Youth Mental Health: A study of 2,652 high school students from 10 schools examined climate change associations with adolescent mental health and suicidality, documenting concerning psychological distress levels.
• Farming Communities: Research in smallholder crop farming communities reported 35.2% prevalence of mental health difficulties, including psychosomatic discomfort and symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Climate Change Impacts on Kenya's Natural Heritage

A new International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) report reveals climate change threatens 43% of world's natural heritage sites. In Kenya, affected UNESCO sites include Lamu Old Town, Mount Kenya National Park, and Lake Turkana National Parks. 

The share of sites with positive conservation outlook dropped from 62% in 2020 to 57% in 2025. Mount Kenya's retreating glaciers threaten water sources for millions, while Lake Turkana's declining levels devastate fishing communities and pastoralists, translating into livelihood losses, displacement, and profound psychological trauma.

Vulnerable Populations: Who Bears the Burden?

• Rural Farmers and Pastoralists: Rural farmers and pastoralists suffer severe psychological distress from climate shocks that destroy crops, livestock, and livelihoods, leading to displacement, grief, and rising conflicts that erode community resilience.
• Women and Children: Women face heightened anxiety, violence, and exhaustion as climate pressures intensify caregiving and survival roles, while children experience long-term trauma, developmental harm, and hopelessness about the future.
• Displaced Populations: Climate-induced displacement causes loss of homes, identity, and social networks, exposing affected populations to extreme stress, insecurity, and high rates of depression, PTSD, and substance abuse.
• Emergency Responders and Community Health Workers: Frontline responders experience burnout, compassion fatigue, and trauma from repeated exposure to disasters and community suffering, often without access to psychological support.

Mental Health Manifestations: What Are People Experiencing?

• Acute Climate Events and Psychological Trauma
  Sudden disasters like floods and storms trigger acute stress, PTSD, grief, and developmental trauma, as survivors mourn lost loved ones, homes, and livelihoods.
• Chronic Climate Stressors and Mental Health Deterioration
  Prolonged droughts and food insecurity cause chronic anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, as people face repeated losses and feelings of helplessness.
• Social Disruption and Community Mental Health
  Climate stress fractures communities, fueling conflicts, displacement, and domestic violence that erode social support and deepen collective trauma.
• Existential and Anticipatory Climate Distress
  Many, especially youth, experience eco-anxiety and anticipatory grief over future climate losses, leading to anger, hopelessness, and emotional exhaustion.

Systemic Failures: Why Kenya Is Unprepared

Healthcare System Gaps

• Insufficient Mental Health Infrastructure: Kenya has approximately one psychiatrist per 500,000 people and less than 100 clinical psychologists for a population exceeding 50 million. Mental health facilities are concentrated in urban areas, leaving rural and marginalized communities, those most affected by climate change, with virtually no access to care.
• Weak Primary Healthcare Integration: Mental health services are not routinely integrated into primary healthcare clinics where most Kenyans seek care. Nurses and clinical officers receive minimal mental health training and lack protocols for identifying and managing climate-related psychological distress.
• Stigma and Cultural Barriers: Deep stigma surrounds mental illness in many Kenyan communities. This prevents help-seeking and pushes people toward harmful coping mechanisms or exploitative traditional healers.
• Gender Insensitivity: Healthcare systems often fail to recognize the gendered dimensions of climate-mental health impacts. Women's psychological distress is dismissed as "complaining" rather than recognized as legitimate health concerns requiring intervention.

Policy and Coordination Failures

Despite increased advocacy, Kenya lacks national policies linking climate and mental health crises. Climate adaptation plans focus on infrastructure and agriculture but ignore psychological wellbeing. Mental health policies don't account for climate change as a distress driver. There's no coordinated multi-sectoral response.

When floods displace communities, emergency response focuses on shelter and food but neglects psychological first aid. Mental health receives less than 1% of national health budget, and climate adaptation funds don't include mental health components.

Data and Research Deficiencies

Poor data collection hinders evidence-based policymaking. Kenya lacks systematic surveillance of climate-related mental health outcomes. Most research focuses on urban populations and overlooks rural, pastoral, and informal settlement communities most vulnerable to climate impacts.

Without robust data, it's impossible to demonstrate crisis magnitude to policymakers or evaluate intervention effectiveness.

Community Responses and Resilience

Communities have developed informal coping strategies: faith-based practices provide spiritual comfort; traditional counseling by elders offers culturally relevant wisdom; community support networks serve as crucial safety nets.

However, KEMRI-Wellcome warns these are insufficient to meet growing need. Traditional systems weren't designed for the scale, intensity, and chronic nature of climate-induced distress. Faith communities lack training to recognize serious mental health conditions.

Community resources are stretched thin when everyone faces hardship simultaneously. These systems don't reach the most marginalized: orphans, widows, people with disabilities. Without formal mental health services, vulnerable individuals fall through gaps with devastating consequences.

Recommendations 

Integrate Mental Health into Climate Adaptation Planning

National Climate Change Action Plans must include mental health objectives, indicators, and budgets. Every county should develop Climate-Mental Health Action Plans assessing local impacts, identifying vulnerable populations, allocating treatment resources, and establishing coordination between environment, health, and social services. Disaster preparedness systems must incorporate psychological first aid as standard protocol with all emergency responders receiving training.

Strengthen Mental Health Service Delivery

Train community health workers, nurses, and clinical officers to identify and manage common mental health conditions using evidence-based protocols. Leverage mobile technology for SMS-based psychoeducation, WhatsApp support groups, and tele-counseling.

Establish community-based support groups for climate-affected populations. Deploy school-based mental health services with trained counselors and screening programs in climate-vulnerable areas.

Generate Policy-Relevant Research and Data

KEMRI and research institutions must prioritize longitudinal studies tracking mental health outcomes as climate impacts intensify. Document prevalence and trends, evaluate intervention effectiveness, explore cultural factors, and generate economic analyses quantifying productivity losses.

Establish routine surveillance integrating mental health indicators into health information systems and climate vulnerability assessments. Create accessible research-to-policy platforms translating findings into policy briefs and advocacy materials.

Address Social Determinants and Build Resilience

Provide livelihood diversification support, cash transfers during climate shocks, and micro-credit for climate-resilient enterprises. Promote drought-resistant crops, water harvesting, and sustainable grazing practices. Expand safety nets, food assistance, unconditional cash transfers, subsidized healthcare, that buffer families against shocks.

Facilitate conflict resolution between competing resource users. Channel youth climate anxiety into constructive action through tree planting, conservation, and green entrepreneurship initiatives.

National Mental Health-Climate Policy Framework

Kenya needs comprehensive national policy establishing: Multi-sectoral coordination through National Climate-Mental Health Task Force; Clear targets for mental health service coverage in vulnerable counties and workforce expansion; Dedicated funding, minimum 3% of climate finance to mental health, increase mental health budget to 5% of health spending; Mandatory routine climate-mental health surveillance; Accountability mechanisms with reporting requirements and consequences for non-implementation.

References

• Capital Business Experts warn of rising mental health crisis linked to climate change
• Mapping Mental Health Services in Kenya for International Youth Day 2025
• Mental health literacy: Perspectives from Northern Kenya Turkana adolescents