Grant: Catalyst Grant: CBR in Climate Change Priority Area - Climate Justice

Pregnant people, especially marginalized and minority people, are particularly susceptible to climate change related mental health burdens given their identities (social and political), and changes in hormonal, biological and brain plasticity over the course of pregnancy. Pregnant people have the right to have and raise a child in a safe and healthy environment and society has an obligation to ensure this is possible. Our climate justice goal is to co-develop a program of research examining climate change related emotional and psychosocial distress among pregnant people. This is an important first step to inform the transformation required to adapt perinatal mental health services to be responsive to climate change related emotional and mental health responses among pregnant people. Our goal will be achieved through two activities: (a) interviews with pregnant people participating in our exploratory descriptive quantitative study about their lived experience with climate emotions (eg, eco-anxiety, solastalgia), mental well-being (eg, depression, anxiety), and behaviors in response to climate change. We will invite participants to join the team in the concept mapping exercise and as representative on the Advisory Board. (b) concept mapping as a mixed-methods approach will identify research priorities and determine how research will be undertaken to maximize participation. Researchers, pregnant people with lived experience of climate change impacts, community leaders (Public Health), and the Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment an advocacy group across Canada for the health of the environment will participate in this process. We will use a hybrid approach to enable broader participation and promote shared responsibility in decision making in prioritizing areas of research. Our three outcomes will be: (a) creation of a conceptual model to guide research questions and hypotheses; (b) co-developed research proposal; and (c) creation of an Advisory Board.