Mudanças climáticas e saúde mental: percepção e memória de pessoas idosas de Santa Rita do Sapucaí

Abstract

Population aging is a growing reality on a global scale and poses significant challenges to public policies, especially regarding the protection of mental health in later stages of life. Throughout aging, specific physical, emotional, and social conditions emerge that, in certain environmental contexts, influence coping mechanisms. Simultaneously, climate change is intensifying, with its impacts becoming more frequent and severe, disproportionately affecting territories marked by socio-environmental inequalities where older people construct their life trajectories and aging processes. In this context, this study aimed to understand how older people perceive and psychologically experience ongoing climate change, investigating its impacts on the mental health of the elderly population in the municipality of Santa Rita do Sapucaí, in southern Minas Gerais, a region characterized by the recurrence of extreme weather events, such as floods. It is based on the understanding that the intersection between population aging and climate change exacerbates vulnerability, demanding coordinated responses from different sectors of public policy. A qualitative approach was adopted, based on the Collective Subject Discourse method, using interviews conducted with elderly residents of the municipality. The analysis of the discourses allowed for the identification of emerging categories that express shared meanings, emotions, and interpretations about the climate phenomenon. The results indicate that climate change is perceived as a concrete and progressive process, associated with the loss of climate predictability, the recurring fear of new extreme events, and an increased feeling of insecurity and helplessness. Manifestations of psychological distress are observed, such as anxiety, constant worry, and fear, frequently anchored in previous experiences with floods and in the memory of a past climate perceived as more stable. These narratives reveal the formation of a collective climate memory, in which recollections of extreme events and past environmental transformations shape the current perception of risk and guide ways of coping with and giving meaning to suffering. Furthermore, the fragility of local public policies in the psychosocial care of the elderly population in contexts of climate risk is evident. It is concluded that climate change significantly impacts the mental health of the elderly population, articulating emotional, social, and symbolic dimensions of aging. The study highlights the need for public policies that integrate mental health, climate justice, and social protection, recognizing older people as central actors in the processes of adaptation to and coping with climate change, with strategies sensitive to territory, memory, and socio-environmental inequalities.