TY - JOUR
T1 - Water and mental health
AU - Wutich, Amber
AU - Brewis, Alexandra
AU - Tsai, Alexander
N1 - Funding Information:
We appreciate our conversations with Jed Stevenson and Danelle Cooper, which assisted us in refining our arguments. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Shama Joshi and Charlayne Mitchell in searching the Human Relations Area Files. We thank Alexandro Amarilla for his help in editing the references. A. W. and A. B. are supported by NSF grant BCS‐1759972 HWISE RCN: Building a Community of Practice for Household Water Insecurity Research (HWISE). A. W. and A. B. acknowledge support for the Global Ethnohydrology Study, funded as part of the Center for Global Health at Arizona State University. A. W. received support from NSF grants SES‐1462086 and DEB‐1637590, as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA2017‐68007‐26584, no. 1013079).
Funding Information:
We appreciate our conversations with Jed Stevenson and Danelle Cooper, which assisted us in refining our arguments. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Shama Joshi and Charlayne Mitchell in searching the Human Relations Area Files. We thank Alexandro Amarilla for his help in editing the references. A. W. and A. B. are supported by NSF grant BCS-1759972 HWISE RCN: Building a Community of Practice for Household Water Insecurity Research (HWISE). A. W. and A. B. acknowledge support for the Global Ethnohydrology Study, funded as part of the Center for Global Health at Arizona State University. A. W. received support from NSF grants SES-1462086 and DEB-1637590, as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA2017-68007-26584, no. 1013079).
Funding Information:
U.S. National Science Foundation, Grant/Award Numbers: BCS‐1759972, DEB‐1637590, SES‐1462086; Department of Agriculture, Grant/Award Number: U.S. USDA2017‐68007‐265841013079 Funding information
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - There is a well-established connection among water quality, sanitation, and physical health. The potentially important relationship between water and mental health is considerably less studied. Reviewing evidence from ethnography, geography, folklore, indigenous studies, rural medicine, drought research, and large-n statistical studies, we argue there is now good theoretical rationale and growing evidence of water insecurity as a possible driver of mental ill-health. Furthermore, some nascent evidence suggests that emotionally meaningful interactions with water might improve mental health outcomes. Leveraging these literatures, we address the many ways in which mental health outcomes are conceptualized and operationalized in water research, including as emotional distress, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, somatic symptoms, and quality of life. We outline arguments supporting seven possible (and likely interlocking) mechanisms that could explain such a relationship: (a) material deprivation and related uncertainty, (b) shame of social failure, (c) worry about health threats, (d) loss of connections to people and places, (e) frustration around opportunity losses and restricted autonomy, (f) interpersonal conflict and intimate partner violence, and (g) institutional injustice or unfairness. However, we explain that as most existing studies are ethnographic, qualitative, or cross-sectional, a causal relationship between water and mental ill-health is yet to be confirmed empirically. More research on this topic is needed, particularly given that poorly understood connections may create barriers to achieving Sustainable Development Goals 3 (health) and 6 (water). We further suggest that tracking mental health indicators may provide unique and as-yet underappreciated insights into the efficacy of water projects and other development interventions. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented.
AB - There is a well-established connection among water quality, sanitation, and physical health. The potentially important relationship between water and mental health is considerably less studied. Reviewing evidence from ethnography, geography, folklore, indigenous studies, rural medicine, drought research, and large-n statistical studies, we argue there is now good theoretical rationale and growing evidence of water insecurity as a possible driver of mental ill-health. Furthermore, some nascent evidence suggests that emotionally meaningful interactions with water might improve mental health outcomes. Leveraging these literatures, we address the many ways in which mental health outcomes are conceptualized and operationalized in water research, including as emotional distress, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, somatic symptoms, and quality of life. We outline arguments supporting seven possible (and likely interlocking) mechanisms that could explain such a relationship: (a) material deprivation and related uncertainty, (b) shame of social failure, (c) worry about health threats, (d) loss of connections to people and places, (e) frustration around opportunity losses and restricted autonomy, (f) interpersonal conflict and intimate partner violence, and (g) institutional injustice or unfairness. However, we explain that as most existing studies are ethnographic, qualitative, or cross-sectional, a causal relationship between water and mental ill-health is yet to be confirmed empirically. More research on this topic is needed, particularly given that poorly understood connections may create barriers to achieving Sustainable Development Goals 3 (health) and 6 (water). We further suggest that tracking mental health indicators may provide unique and as-yet underappreciated insights into the efficacy of water projects and other development interventions. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented.
KW - drought
KW - emotional distress
KW - mental health
KW - psychosocial
KW - water insecurity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087656293&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85087656293&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/wat2.1461
DO - 10.1002/wat2.1461
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087656293
SN - 2049-1948
VL - 7
JO - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water
JF - Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water
IS - 5
M1 - e1461
ER -