Launch Event: Warnings for Mental Health During Climatic Extremes

The new report ‘Mental Health Vulnerability Index (MHVI): preparing communities, societies and authorities for the impacts of climate change on mental health’ by Rhiannon Hawkins provides an innovative review of current strategies to monitor mental health in the context of disasters and proposes a novel solution.

Climate change poses a significant challenge to mental health and well-being both on local to global spatial and immediate and long-term temporal scales. For instance, individuals who experience flooding are shown to have more persistent experiences of mental health conditions three years after the event than those who do not experience flooding (Mulchandani et al., 2020). Currently, Early Warning Systems (EWS) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) strategies attempt to overcome challenges which are increasing because of the increased frequency and intensity of climatic hazards. Therefore, to ensure that EWS and DDR strategies continue to work in an era of growing climatic variability, this report undertakes an analysis of the current literature and policy of EWS and DRR strategies and proposes a novel solution (MHVI) to help a range of agencies identify communities most vulnerable to developing mental ill health during climatic hazards. This is to facilitate the implementation of solutions with are more anticipatory rather than responsive to help improve community resilience to the mental health implications of climate change.

Hybrid Event Information

The event will take place at UCL's Institute of Education (IOE) in Bloomsbury, however the event will be hybrid, so do select an online-only ticket at checkout to join us, wherever you are in the world! Zoom links for registered attendees will be sent in good time prior to the event to the email address used when booking an online ticket.

For guests visiting us on campus, a reception will follow the lecture from 17:00.

Guest Speakers

Rhiannon Hawkins

Rhiannon (she/her) is a UK based second year PhD Student at the University of Glasgow with her thesis exploring the impacts of climate change on Scottish community mental health, in areas prone to flooding and drought. She also works as a research assistant at UCL's Warning Research Centre with her research specialising in mental health care and support in early warning systems and disaster risk reduction strategy. In this role, she has also worked on examining the impacts of hazards on persons with disabilities' mental health and ell-being. Rhiannon is also a co-investigator on a Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW) funded and Scottish Government-endorsed project, entitled “Household flood plans in Scotland – applying behavioural learnings to inform best practice and uptake”. The project team is composed of researchers from the University of Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian University and The James Hutton Institute. Beyond her work in climate change, Rhiannon is a Patient Advocate at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) and has worked on projects for the college in the areas of Climate Anxiety and Autism. This has led to her being involved in developing the National Autism Training Programme for higher Clinical trainees funded by NHS England, which successfully trained 1200 clinical trainee psychiatrists over its 18-month trial period. In this role, she has written two sole-author papers on climate anxiety and autism. Furthermore, she is also an advisory board member for the Royal Meteorological Society’s Wales Climate Education Group and the Sensory Lives Project. She is an esteemed public speaker, having spoken at the United Nations, RCPsych’s International Congress and at the Senedd (Welsh Parliament). Rhiannon also holds a BA in Geography from the University of Oxford and an MSc in Earth Futures Research from the University of Glasgow.

Prof Virginia Murray

Virginia is a public health doctor committed to improving health emergency and disaster risk management. She is an expert in public health and disaster medicine and works on knowledge, partnerships, capacity development and implementation of the 2015 UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement on Climate Change (COP).

Virginia is Head of Global Disaster Risk Reduction at the UK Health Security Agency and Honorary Professor of the UCL RDR. She is also a member of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) scientific committee, Co-Chair of IRDR’s Disaster Loss Data (DATA), Chair of the UNDRR/ISC Hazard Classification and Review Technical Working Group, with the most recent report published earlier in 2025, and co-chair of the WHO Thematic Platform Health and Disaster Risk Management Research Network. Virginia is one of the editors of the WHO Guidance on Research Methods for Health and Disaster Risk Management. She is a member of CODATA Executive Committee and a member of the UNSDSN TReNDS network. She is also visiting/honorary Professor and fellow at several universities including UCL Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction, and an affiliate of the UCL Warning Research Centre.

Dr Emma Lawrance

Emma is an academic and policy fellow in the field of climate change and mental health research and leads the Climate Cares Centre and Mental Health research at the Institute of Global Health at Imperial College London. The Climate Cares Centre works internationally to understand the relationship between climate change and its impact on the mind using research, education and policymaking. Emma also leads the Wellcome Trust-funded Connecting Climate Minds network, which has over 1000 members from 90 different countries. Currently, Emma holds the AXA Climate and Health Fellowship, leading a project titled "Building Youth Resilience by Understanding and Intervening on the Mental Health Impacts of Climate Awareness”, working with young people based in Australia, the Philippines and Trinidad. She is also a member of the OECD Wellbeing and Mental Health Group, the WHO REACH project and has guest edited special issues of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and for the International Review of Psychiatry. Emma is an esteemed public speaker, having spoken at the World Economic Forum "summer Davos" event, COP26, COP27, COP28, Global Mental Health Action Network and has been interviewed for major international news outlets, including Al Jazeera, The BBC, The Guardian and Sky News.

Tilly Alcayna

Tilly is the senior technical adviser for health and climate change at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. Her main research focuses on the climate sensitivity of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and the global climate adaptation financing of healthcare, with her work being published in major academic journals including The Lancet Planetary Health, PLOS Global Public Health and the European Journal of Public Health. Beyond her role at the Climate Centre, she has a wide range of experience in conducting both small and large-scale primary research projects globally for international non-governmental organisations and think-tanks, including the American Red Cross, British Red Cross and the International Institute for the Environment and Development (iied) on the topics of the environment, climate change, health, disaster risk and sustainable development. Tilly is also a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). Furthermore, Tilly holds a Master’s in Public Health in Disasters (MPH) jointly from the Universidad de Oviedo, Spain, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LHSM).

More guest speakers to be announced.