The Earth, Brain, Health Commission: how to preserve mental health in a changing environment

The commission aims to bring together specialized environmental insights on key issues such as human-induced climate change, pollution, land use, urbanization, biodiversity and social injustice. We will analyze a suite of data from cutting-edge high-resolution climate models across a range of socio-economic scenarios, remote-sensing satellite data, atmospheric composition observations and regional socioeconomic information, as well as public health data. This information in tandem will be related to large-scale data on brain health and mental health through the use of advanced data science and artificial intelligence methods that will co-produce a new generation of research-enabled products and services. The results will be used to identify the greatest environmental challenges and provide novel and actionable solutions to improve brain health and mental health.

To complete our knowledge in key areas, the commission will solicit primary research for publication. It will also organize bi-annual workshops and seminars to consult and co-design with stakeholders from academia and research institutions, governments, the United Nations, non-governmental organizations and the private sector. These initiatives aim to fine-tune the research and implementation objectives while encouraging greater involvement from non-academic stakeholders in the commission’s work.

Using the evidence collected, the commission will pinpoint critical issues in which environmental challenges impact brain health and mental health. It will also assess suggested methods for tackling these problems and propose steps of increasing granularity to enable the development of targeted causal preventions and interventions, both at the individual level and the public health level. Such methods include examining the impact of major environmental challenges on brain health and mental health, with a focus on identifying harmful environmental markers that represent ‘real-life’ situations that involve the greatest environmental threats. To identify vulnerability, as well as resilience, major environmental risk profiles need to be tested for interactions with individual psychosocial adversity and behavior. Such investigations provide a basis for investigating the neurobiological and molecular causes of environment-related mental illness and facilitate the development of targeted preventions and interventions on an individual and societal level. For these studies to be of global benefit, the development of capacity building, education and training and global dissemination programs for adaptive coping with environmental adversity are warranted.