Are mental health dimensions included in disaster and climate change interventions in St. Lucia?

Abstract

OBJECTIVE. To elucidate whether mental health dimensions have already been included in disaster and climate change interventions in St. Lucia, a Caribbean island which is highly vulnerable to climate change.  METHODS. We identified documents for national policy and implementation to analyze (1) the relative importance of health in the documents and (2) the conceptualization of health. These document analyzes were complemented by semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to key stakeholders.  RESULTS. In national policy, there were very few instances where mental health dimensions were addressed in climate change documents. In documents related to disasters, mental health dimensions were mentioned occasionally. Of 218 projects implemented, only three were related to health. Two of them were unrelated to mental health dimensions. The remaining one explicitly considered these dimensions, but this project did not appear to be implemented according to our supplementary interview. CONCLUSION. This research revealed that mental health dimensions have yet to be included in disaster and climate change interventions in St. Lucia. To our best knowledge, this is the only study that addressed this point by analyzing key policy documents.