Climate Migration and Mental Health: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Psychosocial Vulnerabilities of Climate-Displaced Communities

Abstract

The intersection of climate change and human migration has produced one of the most pressing yet understudied public health and social challenges of the twenty-first century. As climate-related extreme weather events, sea level rise, drought, and ecological degradation increasingly compel populations to relocate, the psychosocial consequences of climate migration have begun to receive sustained scholarly attention. This article examines climate migration through an explicitly interdisciplinary approach, integrating perspectives from climate science, migration studies, public health, social work, sociology, and the political economy of disaster. Drawing on a critical literature review methodology, the study analyses peer-reviewed scholarship and policy documents published between 2015 and 2025, with particular attention to South Asian and Indian climate-vulnerable contexts. The analysis identifies four interlocking domains of psychosocial vulnerability: pre-displacement chronic stress and anticipatory grief; the acute mental health consequences of displacement and resettlement; the longer-term challenges of cultural rupture, identity reconstruction, and intergenerational trauma; and the structural conditions that shape access to mental health support and recovery resources. The study draws on social determinants of health frameworks, the ecological model of trauma, solastalgia and ecological grief literatures, and migration scholarship including the New Economics of Labour Migration. Findings indicate that climate migration produces distinctive mental health vulnerabilities that cannot be adequately addressed through any single disciplinary lens. The article concludes with implications for interdisciplinary research, integrated mental health and climate adaptation policy, and the design of programmes that recognize climate-displaced communities as bearers of both vulnerability and resilience.