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Embedding psychological resilience in climate resilience through an observatory model – Nature Mental Health

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Gary Belkin
embedding-psychological-resilience-in-climate-resilience-through-an-observatory-model-–-nature-mental-health

The mental health impacts of climate change undermine both individual wellbeing and the collective capacity to respond and adapt. How then to markedly expand care while also strengthening social cohesion, adaptability and collective action? A resilience observatory model facilitates this by combining civic action with civic learning.

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Fig. 1: Resilience observatory model.

The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the time and insights of anonymous reviewers and their contribution to the peer review of this work. We are also grateful to the communities and organizations we all work within and from which this model of practice came.

Funding

This study did not receive designated support by any specific funder or sponsor.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Gary Belkin, Kira Cooper, Emma L. Lawrance.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Billion Minds Institute, New York, NY, USA

    Gary Belkin

  2. Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Gary Belkin, Geeta Mehta & Samantha Winter

  3. Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Kira Cooper

  4. Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Emma L. Lawrance

  5. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Emma L. Lawrance

  6. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

    Dixon Chibanda

  7. Center for Mental Health Law and Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune, India

    Kaustubh Joag & Jasmine Kalha

  8. Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

    Roscoe Kasujja

  9. BRAC Institute of Educational Development, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Erum Mariam & Khalid Afif Mehran

  10. World Resources Institute, Nairobi, Kenya

    Charity Mwangi

  11. Elevate Evidence Hub, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Promise M. Nduku

  12. Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers, Mumbai, India

    Sheela Patel

  13. University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

    Ola Tjornbo

  14. Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

    Syed Shabab Wahid

Authors

  1. Gary Belkin
  2. Kira Cooper
  3. Emma L. Lawrance
  4. Dixon Chibanda
  5. Kaustubh Joag
  6. Jasmine Kalha
  7. Roscoe Kasujja
  8. Erum Mariam
  9. Khalid Afif Mehran
  10. Geeta Mehta
  11. Charity Mwangi
  12. Promise M. Nduku
  13. Sheela Patel
  14. Ola Tjornbo
  15. Syed Shabab Wahid
  16. Samantha Winter

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gary Belkin.

Ethics declarations

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Mental Health thanks Elena Cherepanov, Shazia Soomro and Tatiana Volkodav for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Cite this article

Belkin, G., Cooper, K., Lawrance, E.L. et al. Embedding psychological resilience in climate resilience through an observatory model. Nat. Mental Health (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00668-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00668-8

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