Structural Marginalization and Unequal Care: Perspectives on Mental Health In Disaster Contexts

Climate change and disasters continue having profound impacts on a global scale, affecting the global south and historically marginalized populations to a greater extent. Those populations bearing the disproportionate burden of climate change and disaster outcomes, face challenges such as financial turmoil, displacement, personal injury, and potential death of loved ones. While each of these impacts are distinct, they also all coalesce to collectively impact the mental and emotional health of survivors, responders, aid workers, and their communities. Scholars from across disciplines have long been interested in the mental and emotional impacts of disasters (Breen et al. 2026; Fraser 2024; Makwana 2019). Approximately 25 years ago, Norris et al. (2002) published a two-part, comprehensive review of mental health and disaster literature which identified the necessity of early intervention for mental health care. Following Hurricane Katrina, mental health services were identified as a way to build community resilience (Springgate et al. 2011). As the global community, together, faces increasingly turbulent times, continued research and solutions on mental and emotional healthcare in disasters is paramount.

In this open session, we invite disaster researchers to submit work that explores mental and emotional healthcare impacting historically marginalized populations as well as groups that have been under-researched within this context. Further, we invite work that centers structural, solutions-driven recommendations for mental and emotional healthcare in disasters, especially from populations from the global south, indigenous peoples, and mutual aid and volunteer organizations.