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Purpose: As environmental disasters become more common and severe due to climate change, there is a growing need for strategies to bolster recovery that are proactive, cost-effective, and which mobilise community resources., Aims: We propose that building social group connections is a particularly promising strategy for supporting mental health in communities affected by environmental disasters., Methods: We tested the social identity model of identity change in a disaster context among 627 people substantially affected by the 2019-2020 Australian fires., Results: We found high levels of post-traumatic stress, strongly related to severity of disaster exposure, but also evidence of psychological resilience. Distress and resilience were weakly positively correlated. Having stronger social group connections pre-disaster was associated with less distress and more resilience 12-18 months after the disaster, via three pathways: greater social identification with the disaster-affected community, greater continuity of social group ties, and greater formation of new social group ties. New group ties were a mixed blessing, positively predicting both resilience and distress., Conclusions: We conclude that investment in social resources is key to supporting mental health outcomes, not just reactively in the aftermath of disasters, but also proactively in communities most at risk., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Aims: We assessed the mental health effects of Australia's 2019–2020 bushfires 12–18 months later, predicting psychological distress and positive psychological outcomes from bushfire exposure and a range of demographic variables, and seeking insights to enhance disaster preparedness and resilience planning for different profiles of people. Methods: We surveyed 3083 bushfire-affected and non-affected Australian residents about their experiences of bushfire, COVID-19, psychological distress (depression, anxiety, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder) and positive psychological outcomes (resilient coping, wellbeing). Results: We found high rates of distress across all participants, exacerbated by severity of bushfire exposure. For people who were bushfire-affected, being older, having less financial stress, and having no or fewer pre-existing mental disorders predicted both lower distress and higher positive outcomes. Being male or having less income loss also predicted positive outcomes. Severity of exposure, higher education and higher COVID-19-related stressors predicted both higher distress and higher positive outcomes. Pre-existing physical health diagnosis and previous bushfire experience did not significantly predict distress or positive outcomes. Recommendations: To promote disaster resilience, we recommend investment in mental health, particularly for younger adults and for those in rural and remote areas. We also recommend investment in mechanisms to protect against financial distress and the development of a broader definition of bushfire-related impacts than is currently used to capture brushfires' far-reaching effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People derive less solace from environments that become degraded or destroyed, which is an experience called solastalgia. In the wake of Australia's 2019–2020 bushfires, many Australians faced a markedly different natural environment: one, for example, charred by fire and void of the animals that once lived there. We examined experiences of solastalgia through individual, semi-structured interviews (N = 22) and a quantitative survey (N = 592) with members of bushfire-affected communities in Australia. In interviews, bushfire survivors described using environmental cues to understand and prepare for fire risk, and how environmental change led to emotions of sadness and frustration as well as personal and environmental regrowth and resilience. We also identified temporal aspects of solastalgia, including an anticipatory form distinguished by fears about future fires and environmental loss. Survey data showed that participants experiencing greater solastalgia reported higher symptoms of post-traumatic stress and anxiety, and feeling more anger and loss of control. Arid areas around the globe will be affected by bushfires of increasing intensity and frequency as the climate changes. Our findings provide timely insights into the likely psychological effects of such environmental change. • We report on solastalgia following lived experience of Australia's megafires. • For some, the distress had a temporal element we call anticipatory solastalgia. • Solastalgia also presents as a sense of betrayal about the unwanted change. • Solastalgia is experienced with greater symptoms of anxiety, PTSD, anger. • Community input to protect the environment is critical to protect wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale: Regular cannabis use has been associated with brain functional alterations within frontal, temporal, and striatal pathways assessed during various cognitive tasks. Whether such alterations are consistently reported in the absence of overt task performance needs to be elucidated to uncover the core neurobiological mechanisms of regular cannabis use. Objectives: We aim to systematically review findings from studies that examine spontaneous fluctuations of brain function using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in cannabis users versus controls, and the association between rsFC and cannabis use chronicity, mental health symptoms, and cognitive performance. Methods: We conducted a PROSPERO registered systematic review following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines and searched eight databases. Results: Twenty-one studies were included for review. Samples comprised 1396 participants aged 16 to 42 years, of which 737 were cannabis users and 659 were controls. Most studies found greater positive rsFC in cannabis users compared to controls between frontal-frontal, fronto-striatal, and fronto-temporal region pairings. The same region pairings were found to be preliminarily associated with varying measures of cannabis exposure. Conclusions: The evidence to date shows that regular cannabis exposure is consistently associated with alteration of spontaneous changes in Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent signal without any explicit cognitive input or output. These findings have implications for interpreting results from task-based fMRI studies of cannabis users, which may additionally tax overlapping networks. Future longitudinal rsFC fMRI studies are required to determine the clinical relevance of the findings and their link to the chronicity of use, mental health, and cognitive performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]