Mental Health Impacts of Climate Change and Resilience Among Women in Coastal and Northern Ghana

Mental Health Impacts of Climate Change and Resilience Among Women in Coastal and Northern Ghana | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Mental Health Impacts of Climate Change and Resilience Among Women in Coastal and Northern Ghana Jacob Kwakye This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9149543/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 10 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Climate change is increasingly reshaping everyday life in Ghana through coastal erosion, flooding, erratic rainfall, water scarcity, heat, and agricultural insecurity. While these changes have been widely examined in relation to livelihoods and adaptation, much less attention has been given to their mental health consequences, especially among women whose daily responsibilities for care, food provision, and household survival often intensify under environmental stress. This study examined how climate change influences stress, trauma, and resilience among women in Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, two climate vulnerable communities representing coastal and northern ecological settings in Ghana. Guided by Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, the study adopted a qualitative multiple case study design. Data were generated through in depth semi structured interviews with sixteen (n=16) women and analyzed using Thematic Network Analysis. The findings showed that climate change affects women’s mental wellbeing through layered pathways that include ecological loss, livelihood disruption, caregiving overload, heat related bodily strain, domestic insecurity, and displacement trauma. Women described eco anxiety, sadness, fear, exhaustion, and emotional instability as recurring features of life under worsening climate conditions. At the same time, the study found that women were not passive recipients of harm. They drew on social support, spirituality, livelihood diversification, savings groups, and grassroots collective action to cope with distress and restore agency and hope. The study concludes that climate vulnerability in Ghana must be understood not only as material exposure to environmental risk but also as a mental and emotional condition shaped by gendered labor, unequal social relations, and culturally grounded forms of resilience. Climate change mental health women stress resilience Ghana Introduction Climate change is an increasingly urgent concern in Ghana’s rapidly changing environmental and social landscape, particularly in communities whose livelihoods, mobility, and everyday survival remain closely tied to ecological conditions (World Bank Group, 2022 ; Desjonqueres et al., 2024 ; Romanello et al., 2024 ). This growing concern is not only about rising temperatures, coastal erosion, erratic rainfall, and recurrent flooding, but also about how these environmental changes are reshaping wellbeing, security, and the conditions of daily life. Evidence from the World Bank shows that since 1960 Ghana’s average annual temperature has risen by about 1°C, rainfall has become more variable, and sea level rise has intensified coastal erosion, floods, droughts, and heat waves along the West African coast (World Bank Group, 2022 ). Another World Bank analysis further warns that flooding affects around 45,000 Ghanaians annually and that, without urgent action, climate change could push an additional one million people into poverty by 2050 (World Bank, 2022 ). The Lancet Countdown’s Ghana profile likewise indicates that exposure to extreme heat is worsening, with annual heatwave days for infants and older adults now more than five times higher than the 1986 to 2005 baseline period (Romanello et al., 2024 ). This underscores that climate change in Ghana is no longer only an environmental issue. It is also a growing social and human wellbeing concern. In Ghana, efforts to respond to climate change have largely focused on adaptation planning, disaster risk reduction, food systems, livelihoods, and infrastructure protection. While these are essential priorities, evidence suggests that the mental and emotional dimensions of climate change remain comparatively underexamined. Akakpo et al. ( 2024 ) argue that climate and health discussions in Ghana are still relatively limited, even though climate change is already intensifying health risks and requires stronger community-based research that can connect lived realities to policy response. Across Africa more broadly, the literature on climate change and mental health remains thin relative to the scale of the problem. Lewins et al. ( 2025 ) found that women, farmers, migrants, rural residents, and survivors of climate related trauma are among the groups most exposed to climate linked mental health harms, while Ndifoin et al. ( 2026 ) similarly show that drought, flooding, and sea level rise are increasingly associated with anxiety, persistent stress, reduced wellbeing, and post traumatic symptoms. This suggests that the impacts of climate change cannot be understood only in terms of livelihoods lost or infrastructure damaged. They must also be understood in terms of how environmental instability is carried into the mind, the body, and the social relations through which people endure everyday uncertainty. Some social groups are particularly vulnerable to these pressures, and women are among the most affected. Climate change does not unfold in gender neutral ways. Rather, it interacts with existing inequalities in labor, care, mobility, access to resources, and decision-making power. Evidence from a cross-national analysis of 163 national adaptation plans shows that even where the gendered dimensions of climate change are acknowledged, women’s health, wellbeing, and welfare are still not consistently prioritized in adaptation planning (Pinho-Gomes et al., 2025 ). Related scholarship has further shown that women’s physical and mental health burdens are intensified by the interaction between environmental crisis and unequal access to protection, resources, and care (Ameyaw et al., 2025 ). In the Ghanaian context, this is especially significant because women often bear primary responsibility for food provisioning, water collection, caregiving, and household continuity under conditions of increasing environmental strain. Despite growing recognition of women’s climate vulnerability, important gaps remain in the literature. Existing research in Ghana has documented recurring flooding, livelihood disruption, and gendered vulnerability, but has paid less attention to how climate stress is experienced in emotional and psychological terms. Studies from Old Fadama and Oforikrom Municipality show that recurrent flooding is associated with stress, anxiety, depression, and post traumatic symptoms, and that these effects are often gender differentiated (Adams & Nyantakyi-Frimpong, 2021 ; Asante et al., 2024 ). However, the available evidence remains fragmented. It is stronger on hazard exposure than on emotional worlds, stronger on urban flood settings than on comparative ecological contexts, and still limited in how it captures women’s own accounts of stress, trauma, and resilience across different climate frontlines. There is also limited understanding of how women interpret these experiences in everyday life, how social roles and care responsibilities shape their mental wellbeing, and how they draw on support systems, faith, and practical coping strategies in response. This study addresses that gap by examining the mental health dimensions of climate change among women in Ghana. While existing research has shown that climate change disrupts livelihoods, food systems, health, and social relations, less attention has been paid to how these disruptions are lived psychologically and emotionally. Yet climate related uncertainty, environmental loss, displacement, and everyday insecurity can shape not only material wellbeing but also stress, fear, sadness, exhaustion, and trauma. This study therefore explores how women experience the mental and emotional burdens associated with a changing climate, how these experiences are shaped by their social roles and livelihood responsibilities, and how women identify and mobilize forms of resilience through social support, faith, cultural meaning systems, and practical coping strategies. In doing so, the study broadens current debates on climate vulnerability by bringing mental health into the discussion and by showing that climate change in Ghana is not only an environmental or economic crisis, but also a deeply human one that affects how people feel, endure, and make sense of life under conditions of growing uncertainty. Literature Review Climate change is an increasingly important concern in contemporary scholarship, not only because of its effects on temperature, ecosystems, and agricultural production, but also because of its implications for health and human wellbeing (Charlson et al., 2021 ; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2022; World Health Organization [WHO], 2022). This growing concern is no longer limited to questions of environmental degradation or economic loss. It is also about how climate instability reshapes the emotional and psychological conditions of life. The IPCC (2022) shows that climate change threatens health and wellbeing through interconnected pathways that include displacement, livelihood disruption, food insecurity, weakened social systems, and repeated exposure to environmental shocks, while WHO (2022) identifies mental health as a priority area for climate action because psychological distress is already emerging as a major consequence of climate disruption. Charlson et al. ( 2021 ) further document a broad global evidence base linking climate related exposures to anxiety, depression, stress, trauma, and other adverse mental health outcomes. This underscores that climate change is no longer understood only as an environmental or developmental issue. It is also increasingly recognized as a mental health concern. The growing literature on climate change and mental health has also moved beyond an earlier emphasis on spectacular disasters alone. More recent scholarship shows that climate related mental distress is often generated through slower, cumulative, and less visible pressures, including repeated crop failure, failed adaptation, bodily exhaustion, ecological uncertainty, and the grief associated with watching familiar environments deteriorate over time (Charlson et al., 2021 ; Cosh et al., 2024 ). Cianconi et al. ( 2020 ) argue that climate change undermines mental wellbeing not only through acute disasters, but also through the persistent erosion of everyday life and the dread associated with uncertain futures. This is particularly important in African settings, where climate stress frequently unfolds through livelihood erosion, fragile welfare systems, poor infrastructure, and weak institutional support rather than through well-resourced systems of recovery. Evidence from recent African reviews shows that climate related mental health burdens remain under researched across the continent, even though drought, flooding, sea level rise, and displacement are already associated with worsening psychosocial wellbeing, anxiety, persistent stress, and post traumatic symptoms (Lewins et al., 2025 ; Ndifoin et al., 2026 ). This suggests that current scholarship has begun to recognize the problem, but full understanding is still lacking. Women occupy a particularly important place in this literature because climate distress does not unfold in socially neutral ways. It is filtered through gendered divisions of labor, authority, care, and obligation (Delavallade et al., 2025 ). Reviews of gender and climate health consistently show that women often confront overlapping burdens that include food provision, water collection, caregiving, reproductive labor, limited control over productive assets, and weaker access to adaptation resources (Anjum & Aziz, 2025 ; Zavala et al., 2024 ). These inequalities do not only increase exposure to environmental risk. They also shape how climate change is emotionally lived and socially managed within households and communities. Anjum and Aziz ( 2025 ) specifically identify mental health challenges and increased caregiving demands as part of the gendered health burden of climate change, while Zavala et al. ( 2024 ) demonstrate that mental health, reproductive health, and unpaid care labor repeatedly intersect in the climate and gender literature. This highlights that women’s mental distress under climate change cannot be treated simply as an individual response to environmental pressure. It is also produced through the unequal expectations that women will absorb scarcity, sustain households, and preserve family wellbeing under worsening conditions. Ghanaian scholarship gives this argument stronger contextual depth. Studies on women farmers in semi-arid Ghana show that women’s experiences of climate variability are shaped not only by ecological exposure, but also by household power, age, residence, and access to resources (Lawson et al., 2020 ). Adzawla et al. ( 2019 ) similarly found that climate impacts on livelihoods were often more severe for women than for men, while men tended to report greater adaptive capacity. This points to a gender gap with important implications for vulnerability, dependency, and everyday stress. In this context, women are not simply exposed to climate shocks as farmers, traders, or household members. They are also expected to secure food, preserve children’s welfare, fetch water, and maintain domestic continuity in times of scarcity. The result is a double burden in which productive labour and reproductive labour intensify each other (Adzawla et al., 2019 ). In effect, climate variability not only threatens crops and income. It also threatens the moral, emotional, and practical labour through which women are expected to keep households functioning, often with inadequate institutional support (Adzawla et al., 2019 ; Lawson et al., 2020 ). This makes Ghana an especially important setting for examining how climate-related pressures are translated into mental and emotional strain. The livelihoods literature from Ghana further shows that climate stress is frequently expressed through food insecurity, harvest failure, and unstable household reproduction. Asare Nuamah (2021) found that climate variability significantly undermined subsistence agriculture in rural Ghana and that many households experienced food anxiety and inadequate access to preferred food quantity and quality. Aniah et al. ( 2019 ) showed that smallholder farmers in the savanna agroecological zone respond to ecological and climatic pressures through a combination of coping, on farm, and off farm strategies, while Boansi et al. ( 2023 ) found that households facing harvest failure in northern Ghana often resort to multiple coping strategies under severe constraint. These studies reveal that climate stress is embedded in repeated improvisation under scarcity rather than in isolated moments of crisis. When read through a mental health lens, the implications are significant. Food anxiety, recurring adaptation, and the normalization of household strain create conditions in which worry, exhaustion, emotional overload, and chronic distress are likely to take root, especially for women whose social value is often tied to care and provisioning (Asare Nuamah, 2021; Boansi et al., 2023 ). This highlights that livelihood stress and psychological stress are not separate issues, but closely connected dimensions of climate vulnerability. Although much Ghanaian research has focused on livelihoods and adaptation, a smaller but increasingly important body of work addresses mental health more directly. Abunyewah et al. ( 2024 ) found in semi-arid Ghana that drought impact had statistically significant positive associations with depression, anxiety, and stress among peri urban farmers, while personal social capital moderated some of these effects. This is important because it moves beyond general claims about vulnerability and demonstrates measurable mental health consequences tied to environmental stress. Asante et al. ( 2024 ) similarly show that flood risk perception in urban Ghana is associated with stress, anxiety, depression, and post traumatic symptoms, with gender differentiated patterns of impact. Hagan et al. ( 2025 ) provide qualitative evidence from poor urban coastal communities in Ghana, where sea level rise, property loss, livelihood disruption, hopelessness, anxiety, spirituality, and social support all emerged as central features of people’s accounts. These studies suggest that climate related mental distress in Ghana is not hypothetical. It is already visible in empirical research, even though the field remains fragmented and limited in scope. Some aspects of this literature are especially relevant for understanding trauma. Research on coastal change and displacement in Ghana shows that adaptation through relocation does not automatically improve psychosocial wellbeing. Abu et al. ( 2024 ) found that planned relocation in the Volta Delta negatively affected wellbeing and anxiety when compared with similarly exposed communities that had not moved. Cannings et al. ( 2024 ) likewise show that wellbeing in the Volta Delta is deeply tied to environmental conditions, fears of hazard, and pressures on livelihoods and resource governance. Heath ( 2025 ) extends this debate by arguing that adaptation must be assessed not only by whether it reduces exposure to risk, but also by how it affects identity, belonging, and wellbeing. This suggests that displacement is not simply a spatial shift. It is an emotional and cultural rupture that can unsettle memory, belonging, and continuity. Home, in this sense, is not only a shelter. It is a social and symbolic anchor, and its destabilization can produce lasting mental distress. The literature also shows that climate stress can intensify violence and household conflict. Van Daalen et al. ( 2022 ), in a mixed-methods systematic review, conclude that extreme weather and climate events can heighten the risk of gender-based violence through economic insecurity, food scarcity, service disruption, stress, and worsening inequality. This is particularly significant because it shows that climate change is not experienced only in fields, coastlines, or marketplaces. It is also experienced within intimate and domestic spaces. For women, the burden of climate change may therefore include fear of coercion, conflict, and abuse when household provision becomes insecure and social expectations around male provider roles become strained (Mostert et al., 2025 ; Ndifoin et al., 2026 ). This highlights the need to understand climate vulnerability not only in environmental or economic terms, but also in relation to gendered power and domestic insecurity. Heat is another important but sometimes neglected dimension of this scholarship. Research increasingly shows that high ambient temperature affects not only physical health, but also psychiatric and neurocognitive outcomes, especially among women in low- and middle-income settings whose labor often continues despite extreme heat exposure (Künzel et al., 2025 ). The IPCC (2022) also identifies heat as a major climate-related health threat with implications for mental well-being, while Brown et al. ( 2025 ) found that women in Nairobi’s informal settlements reported higher anxiety and depression symptoms in relation to extreme weather, including drought and abnormal temperatures. In Ghana, especially in northern and low-income settings, heat is lived through headaches, fatigue, dehydration, disrupted sleep, market work, water collection, and food preparation. This means that heat is not simply background climate. It is part of the embodied experience of distress and an important pathway through which climate change affects women’s mental wellbeing. At the same time, the literature does not portray women only as overwhelmed subjects of harm. One of its clearest insights is that resilience is often relational, culturally grounded, and socially produced rather than purely individual. Hagan et al. ( 2025 ) found that social support, spirituality, and community coping mechanisms were central to how people managed climate-related mental distress in coastal Ghana, while Abunyewah et al. ( 2024 ) show that social capital can buffer the mental health effects of drought. Research on women’s empowerment and irrigation in northern Ghana also suggests that adaptation initiatives can improve agency and well-being, even though such gains remain constrained by broader social norms and unequal access to resources (Bryan & Garner, 2022 ; Bryan & Mekonnen, 2023 ). This highlights that resilience under climate change is not simply about inner strength. It is also about access to relationships, institutions, shared meanings, and material resources that help women endure and respond to crisis. Theoretical Framework This study was guided by Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping. Together, these perspectives provide a strong basis for examining how climate change shapes women’s mental health in Ghana as a product of both structural inequality and lived psychological experience. Rather than treating stress, trauma, and resilience as purely personal states, the framework situates them within gendered relations of labor, resource access, environmental change, and everyday survival. In this sense, women’s accounts of fear, sadness, exhaustion, and coping are understood not as isolated reactions, but as experiences produced within wider ecological and social relations of power. Feminist Political Ecology offers the first major lens for the study. Emerging from feminist critiques of mainstream political ecology, this perspective argues that environmental change is never socially neutral because access to land, water, labor, knowledge, and decision making is structured through gendered power relations (Rocheleau et al., 1996 ; Agarwal, 1992 ; Elmhirst, 2011 ). Rocheleau et al. ( 1996 ) showed that ecological processes must be read alongside questions of gender, livelihood, and everyday resource control, while Agarwal ( 1992 , 1997 ) demonstrated that women’s environmental knowledge and vulnerability are shaped by material inequalities rather than by any essential closeness to nature. Later scholars such as Nightingale ( 2006 , 2011 ), Elmhirst ( 2011 ), Harcourt and Nelson ( 2015 ), and Sultana ( 2021 ) further deepened this perspective by emphasizing embodiment, subjectivity, care, everyday practice, and the politics of social reproduction under environmental stress. Feminist Political Ecology is therefore especially useful for this study because it draws attention to who fetches water, who secures food, who absorbs household strain, who sacrifices first during scarcity, and whose labor remains invisible in adaptation processes (Rocheleau et al., 1996 ; Nightingale, 2011 ; Sultana, 2021 ). It makes clear that climate change is not experienced only as drought, flooding, heat, or coastal erosion, but through the gendered organization of daily life. In Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, this lens helps show that women’s mental distress is tied not only to environmental exposure, but also to the unequal burdens they carry in sustaining households and communities under worsening climatic uncertainty. The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, developed by Lazarus and Folkman ( 1984 ), provides a complementary psychological lens. This theory defines stress not as a fixed stimulus or a simple emotional reaction, but as a dynamic transaction between the individual and the environment, shaped by how a situation is appraised and by the coping resources perceived to be available (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ; Lazarus, 1991 ). Primary appraisal concerns whether an event is experienced as threatening, harmful, or challenging, while secondary appraisal concerns whether one feels capable of responding effectively (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ; Lazarus, 1999 ). Coping, in this framework, includes both problem-focused strategies directed at changing the stressful condition and emotion-focused strategies aimed at regulating emotional distress (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ; Folkman et al., 1986 ). Later work by Folkman ( 1997 , 2008 , 2013 ) further showed that meaning-focused coping becomes especially important when people face chronic, uncontrollable, or repeated hardship. This insight is highly relevant to climate change, where many stressors are prolonged, cumulative, and only partly manageable. For this study, the theory helps explain how women interpret climate-related threats such as crop failure, sea encroachment, flooding, heat, displacement, caregiving overload, and livelihood insecurity, and how these appraisals shape fear, anxiety, sadness, fatigue, and trauma. It also helps illuminate the coping practices women mobilize, including prayer, social support, emotional endurance, livelihood diversification, and collective action. Combined, Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping provide an integrated framework for understanding climate-related mental health as both socially structured and personally negotiated. Feminist Political Ecology clarifies how vulnerability is produced through gendered relations of labor, resources, and power (Rocheleau et al., 1996 ; Elmhirst, 2011 ; Harcourt and Nelson, 2015 ), while the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping explains how these pressures are interpreted, managed, and lived at the level of everyday experience (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ; Lazarus, 1991 ; Folkman, 2008 ). In essence, they allow this study to connect women’s narratives of stress, trauma, and resilience to the broader ecological, social, and psychological processes that shape mental health under a changing climate. Methodology This study adopted a qualitative multiple case study design to examine how climate change shapes stress, trauma, and resilience among women in Ghana. A qualitative approach was appropriate because the study sought to understand lived experiences, subjective meanings, and everyday coping processes that could not be adequately captured through standardized or purely quantitative methods (Creswell & Poth, 2018 ; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ; Terry et al., 2017 ). The multiple case study design was equally suitable because it allowed for in depth exploration across two ecologically distinct but climate vulnerable communities, making it possible to identify both shared patterns and place specific differences in how climate change affects women’s mental wellbeing (Yin, 2018 ; Baxter & Jack, 2008 ). The study was conducted in Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, two communities selected purposively because they represent contrasting ecological contexts of climate vulnerability in Ghana. Salakope was chosen as a coastal site marked by sea encroachment, flooding, displacement pressures, and the erosion of livelihoods and ancestral land. Choggu Yapalsi was selected as a northern inland site characterized by recurrent heat, water scarcity, rainfall variability, and agricultural insecurity. These two sites provided a useful basis for examining how different environmental pressures shape women’s experiences of stress, trauma, and resilience, while also revealing common patterns across diverse climate affected settings. The study population comprised adult women in the two communities who had direct experience of climate related disruptions to livelihood, household welfare, or daily survival. Purposive sampling was used to recruit information rich participants with relevant knowledge and lived experience of the phenomenon under investigation (Patton, 2015 ; Palinkas et al., 2015 ). The goal was not statistical representativeness, but depth, relevance, and experiential richness. Eligibility required that participants were adult women, had lived in the community long enough to observe environmental change over time, and had directly experienced at least one climate related stressor such as flooding, sea erosion, crop failure, water scarcity, displacement, or extreme heat. Recruitment was facilitated through community entry processes, local leaders, women’s groups, and informal referrals. The final sample size was sixteen women, drawn across the two study sites. Participants ranged in age from 30 to 60 years and reflected diverse livelihood activities and household responsibilities, thereby strengthening the range of perspectives captured. Data were generated through in depth semi structured interviews. This method was appropriate because it enabled participants to describe their experiences in their own words while allowing the researcher to probe issues central to the study objectives, including environmental change, emotional distress, caregiving burdens, livelihood disruption, displacement, violence, and coping practices (Kallio et al., 2016 ; Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015 ). Interviews were conducted face to face in private, accessible, and participant preferred settings such as homes and community spaces. Because the study addressed sensitive issues, face to face engagement was important for building rapport, observing emotional cues, and creating a supportive environment for discussing fear, sadness, stress, and traumatic experience. The interviews were conducted in local languages, specifically Dagbani, Twi, and Ewe, depending on the language most comfortable for each participant. Research assistants who understood these languages supported the interview process to ensure clear communication and accurate interpretation of participants’ responses. This enabled participants to express their experiences fully and naturally in the language they used in everyday life. Each interview lasted between 50 and 90 minutes. With participants’ consent, interviews were audio recorded and supplemented with field notes that captured contextual details, non verbal expressions, and emerging reflections. The recordings were later transcribed verbatim and translated into English for analysis, helping to preserve meaning while making the data accessible for systematic interpretation. The interview guide was informed by the study objectives and by the theoretical lenses of Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping. Questions explored participants’ perceptions of climate change in their communities, the effects of environmental change on livelihoods and household wellbeing, the emotional and psychological burdens associated with these changes, and the ways women interpreted and managed stress in everyday life. The guide also examined caregiving responsibilities, experiences of displacement or domestic strain, access to support, spiritual practices, adaptation strategies, and participation in community initiatives. Data analysis followed Attride Stirling’s (2001) Thematic Network Analysis. Transcripts were read repeatedly to build familiarity with the data and identify recurring patterns and emotionally significant narratives. Initial coding was undertaken for meaningful segments of text related to mental health impacts, environmental loss, caregiving burdens, violence, displacement, coping, and resilience. Coding was both inductive and theoretically informed. Related codes were grouped into basic themes, clustered into organizing themes, and synthesized into broader global themes that captured the major patterns across the dataset. This process generated the central themes reported in the findings, including eco anxiety and depression, the double burden of caregiving, heat related distress, violence and displacement trauma, and resilience through social support, spirituality, adaptation, and grassroots action. The codes and themes that emerged during the analysis have been provided in Table 1 below. Table 1 Selected Codes, Subthemes, and Themes Identified in Analysis Main themes Subthemes Refined codes Early descriptive codes Impacts of climate change on women’s mental health Eco-anxiety and depression Ecological loss; hopelessness; depressive distress Fear of the rising sea; sadness over land loss; crying; loss of peace of mind; depression Caregiving burden and emotional exhaustion Water stress; food insecurity; care overload; emotional strain Long walks for water; worrying about food; caring for children alone; constant planning; mental fatigue Heat-related physical and psychological distress Heat stress; bodily discomfort; anxiety; sleep disruption Headaches; dizziness; racing heart; poor sleep; weakness from heat; fear of worsening climate Violence and domestic insecurity Household conflict; verbal abuse; physical aggression; insecurity Quarrels after livelihood loss; unsafe home; fear of partner; emotional insecurity Trauma of displacement and loss Forced relocation; grief; rootlessness; disrupted belonging Loss of home; loss of ancestral land; broken community ties; feeling like a stranger Resilience and coping strategies Social support networks Family support; mutual aid; group support Shared childcare; food support; emotional comfort; women’s savings group assistance Spirituality and prayer Faith-based coping; hope; inner strength Prayer for strength; leaving burdens to God; spiritual comfort; courage through faith Adaptation strategies Livelihood diversification; savings; practical adjustment Soap making; petty trading; gardening; savings groups; relocation planning Grassroots collective action Collective learning; preparedness; advocacy Seed testing; water harvesting; early warning training; community organizing Rigor and trustworthiness were strengthened using established qualitative criteria (Lincoln & Guba, 1985 ; Shenton, 2004 ). Credibility was enhanced through careful probing, close attention to participants’ meanings, and the use of verbatim quotations. Dependability was supported through a consistent interview guide, systematic transcription, and a documented analytic process. Confirmability was strengthened by grounding interpretations closely in the data (Nowell et al., 2017 ). Ethical approval was obtained from the McGill University Research Ethics Board, REB File Number: 24-09-061. Participants provided informed consent, confidentiality was protected through anonymization, and interviews were conducted with empathy and care throughout. Limitations of the study This study has important limitations. It drew on a small purposive sample of sixteen women from two climate-vulnerable communities in Ghana, Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, so the findings are not intended to be statistically representative of all women’s experiences across the country. The qualitative design privileged depth over breadth, offering rich insight into lived experience but limiting generalizability. Because participants were recruited through community-based networks and referrals, the study may have captured the views of women who were more visible, available, or willing to speak about distress and coping. Interviews were conducted in Dagbani, Twi, and Ewe with the support of research assistants and later translated into English, which may have affected the preservation of certain emotional nuances and culturally specific meanings. In addition, the findings rely on self-reported narratives, which may reflect recall bias and personal interpretation. Despite these limitations, the study offers credible, context-rich insight into women’s mental health under climate change in Ghana. Results The study conducted in Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi revealed a shared pattern across both communities. The findings showed that climate change is not only disrupting land and livelihoods but also reshaping women’s mental well-being. The analysis found that environmental instability and economic insecurity combine with gendered expectations of care and provision to intensify psychological strain, especially where daily survival demands constant planning, sacrifice, and emotional restraint. However, the study also showed that women are not merely absorbing harm. It revealed active resilience built through social ties, faith-based practices, practical livelihood adjustments, and collective community action. The sections that follow substantiate these findings with direct quotes that anchor each theme in lived experience. Impacts: Stress, Trauma, and Mental Health Eco Anxiety and Depression The psychological toll of environmental degradation manifests as a persistent and often debilitating sense of apprehension and sadness. In coastal communities like Salakope, the rising sea is not merely an environmental issue but a direct assault on mental well being. The relentless loss of property, ancestral land, and primary livelihoods such as fishing and trading erodes any sense of security or predictability about the future. This constant state of threat fosters a specific form of anxiety rooted in ecological loss, which can spiral into profound despair and clinical depression as individuals grieve their vanishing way of life and confront an increasingly precarious existence. The need for psychiatric care emerges when coping mechanisms are overwhelmed by the scale of loss and the perceived absence of solutions. One participant described this erosion of hope, stating, “You watch the water come closer every year. It took the tree where my father’s shade was, then it took the wall of my compound. Now I just wait for it to take the rest. This waiting… it fills your stomach with worry until you cannot eat. You feel a heavy sadness for what is gone and what will still go. Sometimes I sit and just look at the sea crying because I have no power to stop it.” ( Participant 7, 48 years, female, Salakope Community ). Another voice illustrated the progression from anxiety to deeper psychological distress, explaining, “After my fish smoking shed was washed away, something broke in me. The anxiety was there always, a shaking inside. But then it became a darkness. I had no motivation to rebuild again. I would forget things, my children’s words would not reach me. My family said I was sick in my spirit and took me to the hospital. The doctor said my mind was exhausted from the stress and gave me medicine for depression. The sea took my work and then it took my peace of mind.” ( Participant 3, 52 years, female, Salakope Community ). The Double Burden of Caregiving Climate induced scarcity dramatically intensifies the traditional caregiving roles shouldered by women, creating a cascade of physical and mental exhaustion. Reduced water availability and compromised food security demand exponentially more labor, as women travel greater distances to fetch water and manage dwindling resources. This physical fatigue is compounded by acute mental exhaustion from the relentless calculation of how to stretch scant supplies. Furthermore, when male migration occurs in response to climate shocked agriculture, women are left as sole managers of household survival. This abandonment, though often economically necessary, multiplies their responsibilities and isolates them psychologically. They must bear the emotional weight of providing stability for children and the elderly amidst deepening uncertainty, significantly increasing their vulnerability to anxiety, distress, and a profound sense of being overwhelmed. A participant from the northern community detailed the crushing daily cycle, saying, “The walk for water now starts in darkness. By the time I return, the sun is already hot, and my body is finished, but the day has not started. I must cook the little we have, clean, care for the children… my mind is always planning, worrying… did I fetch enough, will the millet last, what will I do if the child falls sick? There is no rest inside my head. It is a tiredness that sleep does not cure.” ( Participant 11, 30 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community ). Another participant spoke to the psychological weight of abandonment, sharing, “When he left for the city after the crops failed, the silence he left behind was heavier than the work. Now every problem is mine to solve alone. If the roof leaks, if there is no money for school, if his mother is sick… the worry sits only on my heart. I must be both father and mother, but I am so tired. I feel alone with a mountain on my back, and some days I fear I will fall and everything will collapse.” ( Participant 5, 45 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community ). Extreme Heat and Physical Mental Toll Rising temperatures inflict a direct and chronic physiological stress that translates into acute psychological distress. The experience of extreme heat is not merely discomfort but a full-body assault that undermines mental well-being. Chronic, debilitating headaches, dizziness, nausea, and sleep disruption become daily realities, creating a constant state of physical misery. This bodily strain directly fuels intense anxiety, as the body’s stress response is perpetually activated. The feeling that one’s “body perpetually believes it’s under attack” encapsulates this synergy. The heat also serves as a constant, oppressive reminder of the changing climate, generating anxiety about broader environmental collapse, water shortages, and failing health, thereby locking individuals in a cycle of physical suffering and psychological dread. One participant described this visceral experience, saying, “The heat is not outside anymore… it is inside my head. It pounds here [points to temples] all day, a headache that makes thinking hard. My vision swims sometimes, and my heart races for no reason… just the thick air. Your body feels like it is fighting all the time, buzzing with a sick worry. You cannot escape it, even in the shade. You just wait for the night, hoping for a cool breath, and dread the sun coming back.” ( Participant 9, 41 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community ). Another voice connected the physical sensation to broader anxiety, explaining, “This new heat… it makes you feel weak and sick all the time. Your body is on edge. But it also makes your mind afraid. You think, if it is like this now, how will it be for my children? If the sun can make me so ill, what is it doing to the land? The dizziness is not just from the heat… it is from the fear of what it means. It feels like the world is burning and you are trapped in the fire with no way out.” ( Participant 15, 37 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community ). Increased Risk of Violence The severe economic stress and displacement triggered by climate events act as powerful catalysts for domestic conflict and intimate partner violence. As livelihoods are destroyed and families are displaced, the resulting financial pressure, loss of status, and pervasive uncertainty fracture household stability. Men, socialized as primary providers, often experience a crisis of masculinity and profound frustration in the face of their inability to secure the family’s needs. This frustration, combined with the trauma of loss, is frequently displaced onto partners through verbal, emotional, and physical aggression. For women, the home ceases to be a sanctuary and becomes a place of heightened danger, where the climate crisis outside is mirrored by a crisis of safety within, drastically compounding their overall trauma and sense of insecurity. A participant confided, “Since the flood ruined his workshop, he is a different man. The worry of no money eats him. He drinks the cheap gin and then his eyes change. Any small mistake… the soup is late, the child is crying… becomes a big quarrel. He shouts that I am a burden. Sometimes he pushes me. The fear is always there now… not just of the next flood, but of his hands. Our home is not safe anymore.” ( Participant 2, 38 years, female, Salakope Community ). Another participant revealed the link between displacement and conflict, stating, “After we were moved from our land by the government because of the sea, we lived in one room with his brother’s family. The shame of having nothing, of being like a beggar in another man’s space… it broke him. He would pick fights over nothing. He said I looked at him with pity. The violence… it started there. The stress of losing everything outside turned our home into a battlefield. I was afraid of the sea, but then I became more afraid of the man I married.” ( Participant 10, 49 years, female, Salakope Community ). Trauma from Displacement Forced relocation due to climate impacts is a profoundly traumatic event that extends far beyond physical movement. It represents a catastrophic rupture of identity, belonging, and history. The loss of a home is the loss of a repository of family memory, cultural continuity, and social networks that constitute the self. The destruction of homes and the severing of ties to ancestral land generate a profound, lingering grief akin to bereavement. This trauma is compounded by the loss of community cohesion and mutual support systems that are vital for psychological resilience. Displaced individuals often experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress, including intrusive memories of the loss, persistent sadness, and a deep sense of rootlessness and alienation, struggling to find meaning and connection in a new and often impoverished setting. One elder participant expressed this deep cultural and personal grief, saying, “They moved us to this place, but my spirit is still there by the shore. That land held the bones of my grandparents and the footprints of my childhood. A house not just sticks and mud… it is the stories in the walls. To lose it to the water is to have your past erased. I dream of the old village… the sounds, the paths. I wake up here and my heart is heavy with missing. I am a stranger in this new place, and a ghost in my own life.” ( Participant 14, 60 years, female, Salakope Community ). Another displaced woman spoke of the ongoing psychological rupture, explaining, “The day they said we must leave, it was like a death. We lost our neighbors, the women I laughed with, the children who grew together. Now we are scattered. The new settlement has no soul, no history. I feel disconnected, like a tree pulled up by its roots. I look at my grandchildren and I cry because I cannot show them where I came from… it is gone. This loss is a wound that does not heal. You just learn to carry the ache every day.” ( Participant 8, 53 years, female, Salakope Community ). Resilience and Coping Strategies Social Support Networks In the face of systemic climate threats, the most fundamental and frequently deployed form of resilience emerges from the intricate web of social relationships. These networks, encompassing extended family, neighbors, and community kin, function as a vital psychological and practical safety net. They provide a buffer against the isolating effects of trauma by offering shared emotional space for expressing fear and grief, thereby normalizing distress and reducing the burden of carrying it alone. Practically, these networks facilitate the exchange of critical resources, from shared childcare during long treks for water to loans of food or capital when livelihoods are interrupted. This reciprocal interdependence transforms individual vulnerability into collective endurance, reinforcing the idea that survival is a communal project rather than a solitary struggle. One participant highlighted the emotional sustenance derived from these bonds, stating, “When the worry closes in on me, I go to my cousin’s house. We don’t always need to speak of the big problems. Sometimes we just sit, shelling groundnuts together. Her presence is a comfort. She might say, ‘I also could not sleep last night, thinking of the river.’ And just knowing my fear is not mine alone… it makes the weight lighter. We hold each other’s spirit up.” ( Participant 6, 55 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community ). Another participant illustrated the material and practical support, explaining, “After the last flood washed away my vegetable patch, I had nothing to sell. For two months, it was my women’s susu group that saved us. They contributed so I could buy new seeds and feed my children. And when I was sick from the stress, my neighbor’s daughter came every day to fetch water for me. This is how we live. Your problem becomes my problem, and my strength becomes yours. Alone we would break, but together we find a way to bend and not snap.” ( Participant 1, 50 years, female, Salakope Community ). Spirituality and Prayer For many women, spirituality and devout prayer constitute a central psychological framework for processing hardship and managing profound stress. Faith provides a narrative that transcends the immediate, uncontrollable chaos of environmental collapse, situating suffering within a larger, divine order. This practice offers more than solace; it is an active coping mechanism that fosters internal resilience. Through prayer, women articulate their anxieties, relinquish feelings of helplessness to a higher power, and cultivate a sense of patience and fortitude. It provides a daily ritual of hope and a mental sanctuary, enabling them to face relentless adversity with a perceived sense of spiritual support and purpose, which is crucial for maintaining mental equilibrium in the absence of tangible security. A participant described prayer as her foundational source of strength, saying, “Before the sun touches the land, I am on my knees. I pour out my heart to God… the fear of the sea, the sickness in my body from worry, the hunger in my children’s eyes. I leave it all there. When I stand up, my burden feels shared. The Bible says He is a rock and a fortress, so I imagine my mind hiding in that fortress when the storms of life come. It does not change the rising water, but it changes how I stand inside myself to face it. My faith is the anchor that keeps my soul from drowning in despair.” ( Participant 10, 49 years, female, Salakope Community ). Another voice emphasized its role in managing daily stress, explaining, “You cannot fight the sun for shining too hot or the rains for not falling. So, what can you do? You pray. When the walk for water is too long, I pray with every step. When my husband is gone and the night is lonely, I pray for safety. It is my conversation with the universe. It stops my mind from running to dark places. It gives me a kind of quiet courage. I tell myself, ‘If God has brought you to this challenge, He will see you through it.’ This belief is the fuel for my endurance.” ( Participant 4, 36 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community ). Adaptation Strategies Moving beyond passive endurance, many women engage in proactive adaptation strategies that actively reshape their relationship with the changing environment. These strategies, from livelihood diversification to planned relocation, are critical for restoring a sense of agency and combating the helplessness that fuels anxiety. By diversifying income, such as integrating small-scale dry-season gardening, petty trading, or artisanal work alongside failing primary activities, women create alternative pathways for survival, directly mitigating economic risk. For coastal residents, the collective planning of relocation to safer areas represents a profound forward-looking strategy. This process, though fraught with difficulty, transforms them from passive victims of displacement into active architects of their future, providing a tangible goal that can supplant feelings of hopelessness with purposeful action. One participant spoke about the psychological benefit of diversifying her livelihood, sharing, “I saw the rains becoming a trick, so I knew only farming my father’s way would mean hunger. I learned from an NGO how to make soap and shea butter. Now, even when the maize fails, I have something to sell at the market. This small thing… it changed my mind. I am not just waiting for the clouds anymore. I have a plan B. It makes me feel clever and strong, like I can outsmart the problem. The anxiety is less because I have another door to knock on.” ( Participant 8, 43 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community ). Another participant detailed the hope embedded in collective relocation planning, stating, “We know this coastline is dying. So, we women have started a savings group called ‘Beyond the Wave.’ Every week we contribute a little. We are researching land further inland together. Talking about it, planning it… it gives us a future to look at. Instead of crying over what the sea takes, we are building a dream of what we can create somewhere else. The action itself is medicine. It turns our fear into a map. We are not just being pushed; we are preparing to move with dignity.” ( Participant 12, 47 years, female, Salakope Community ). Grassroots Initiatives Participation in locally organized, women-led grassroots initiatives represents a powerful form of collective resilience that merges education, activism, and community mobilization. These networks, such as those focused on climate-resilient farming or disaster preparedness, serve multiple psychological functions. They transform isolated individuals into informed members of a collective movement, directly countering feelings of powerlessness. By learning and teaching sustainable techniques, women reclaim expertise and authority over their environment. Furthermore, these groups provide a structured platform for solidarity, where shared struggles are channeled into shared solutions. This active engagement fosters a sense of ownership over the adaptation process, building not just practical skills but also political identity and collective hope, which are essential components of long-term psychological resilience. A participant active in a farming cooperative explained its empowering effect, saying, “In our ‘Seeds of Strength’ group, we are not just victims of the bad weather. We are experimenters. We test drought-resistant seeds, and we learn water harvesting. When I teach another woman what I’ve learned, I feel my value. We are writing a new book on how to farm in this new world, and we are the authors. Meeting with these women every week fills my cup. We share our fears, yes, but then we share solutions. It makes me feel we are not just surviving the change… we are smartly adapting to it, together.” ( Participant 13, 52 years, female, Salakope Community ). Another leader of a preparedness network described its broader impact, stating, “After the big flood, we formed the ‘Volta Watchdogs.’ We train women to read early warning signs, to secure their documents, to have an evacuation plan. Knowledge is power. Before, a dark cloud meant only panic. Now, it means a sequence of actions we take together. This work has given us a voice. We meet with chiefs and assemblymen. We are no longer just waiting for help; we are demanding it and showing how. The initiative has given us back our courage. It has turned our anxiety into organization, and our grief into a plan to protect what we have left.” ( Participant 16, 45 years, female, Salakope Community ). Discussion This discussion draws on the study’s findings alongside relevant scholarship to explain how climate change reshapes women’s mental health through stress, trauma, and resilience in Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi. Guided by Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, it situates these experiences within gendered relations of labor, care, environmental change, and everyday survival rather than treating them as isolated emotional reactions. The analysis shows that climate related mental distress is produced through the convergence of ecological instability, livelihood disruption, household insecurity, and unequal care responsibilities. It also shows that women’s responses are not limited to suffering alone. They include relational, spiritual, practical, and collective forms of coping that help women endure and negotiate worsening climatic uncertainty. This study found that climate-related mental distress among women in Ghana is produced through a layered set of pressures that operate simultaneously at the level of environmental change, household reproduction, livelihood insecurity, and social expectation. The findings show that stress, sadness, fear, exhaustion, and trauma are not reducible to one climatic event or one discrete shock. Instead, they emerge through the accumulation of environmental loss, unstable income, disrupted care routines, and the continuous emotional labor of trying to hold daily life together. This pattern aligns with scholarship showing that climate related mental health harms develop not only after sudden disasters, but also through slower and more cumulative processes of uncertainty, ecological degradation, and chronic insecurity (Charlson et al., 2021 ; Cianconi et al., 2020 ; IPCC, 2022). At the same time, the findings add important contextual depth by showing how these pressures take shape in two distinct Ghanaian settings where climatic exposure differs, but where women still shoulder the burden of preserving household survival under conditions of environmental change. A central contribution of this study is that it clarifies how ecological loss becomes psychological distress when environmental change is experienced as the erosion of security, predictability, and future possibility. The findings on eco anxiety and depression strongly suggest that environmental degradation in coastal settings is lived not simply as material loss, but as emotional injury. This resonates with work showing that eco anxiety, ecological grief, and climate related depression are often rooted in anticipatory fear, repeated loss, and the collapse of place-based certainty (Cosh et al., 2024 ; Charlson et al., 2021 ). The findings from Salakope also extend Ghanaian research on sea level rise and coastal distress by showing that emotional suffering is tied not only to property damage or livelihood interruption, but also to the loss of ancestral land, identity, and continuity, which echoes the work of Hagan et al. ( 2025 ), Abu et al. ( 2024 ), and Cannings et al. ( 2024 ). Feminist Political Ecology is especially useful here because it directs attention to the fact that environmental change is never experienced apart from relations of livelihood, belonging, and social reproduction (Rocheleau et al., 1996 ; Elmhirst, 2011 ). The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping also sharpen this interpretation by suggesting that repeated exposure to sea encroachment is appraised not as a temporary inconvenience, but as an ongoing and escalating threat that overwhelms available coping resources (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984 ; Lazarus, 1991 ). In this sense, eco anxiety in the study is not abstract fear about the planet. It is a deeply situated distress tied to the erosion of home, work, and life world. The findings on caregiving burden and emotional exhaustion further show that climate related distress among women is inseparable from the gendered organization of daily survival. Water scarcity, food insecurity, and male migration intensified women’s responsibility for sustaining households, often leaving them to manage care, provisioning, and emotional stability with limited resources and little respite. This strongly aligns with literature showing that climate change magnifies the unpaid and underrecognized labor that women already perform in securing food, water, and social reproduction (Anjum & Aziz, 2025 ; Zavala et al., 2024 ). Ghanaian studies similarly show that women’s experiences of climate variability are shaped by unequal access to resources and by social expectations that position them as primary managers of household survival during periods of scarcity (Lawson et al., 2020 ; Adzawla et al., 2019 ). The present findings deepen this scholarship by showing that the double burden of productive and reproductive labor is also a psychological burden. Women are not only doing more work. They are also carrying the emotional pressure of anticipation, planning, worry, and responsibility. Feminist Political Ecology helps interpret this by foregrounding the politics of social reproduction and the invisible labor through which women absorb environmental crisis in everyday life (Nightingale, 2011 ; Sultana, 2021 ). The findings therefore support the view that climate vulnerability is not only about exposure to hazard. It is also about who is expected to absorb the strain of keeping life going when conditions deteriorate. The findings on extreme heat add an important embodied dimension to the discussion. Heat in the study was not described as background weather or seasonal inconvenience. It emerged as a full bodily condition of discomfort, weakness, sleep disruption, and fear. This aligns with growing evidence that high ambient temperature affects not only physical health but also emotional and psychological wellbeing, particularly in low- and middle-income settings where women’s labor cannot easily be paused during heat events (Künzel et al., 2025 ; IPCC, 2022). The findings resonate with Brown et al. ( 2025 ), who show that African women exposed to abnormal temperatures and weather extremes report higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. What the present study adds is a stronger account of heat as lived distress. Headaches, dizziness, racing heart, poor sleep, and bodily depletion were not separate from fear. They fed into it. The body became the medium through which climate change was felt as constant attack. The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping is especially useful here because it helps explain how persistent bodily strain shapes threat appraisal and emotional response (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984 ). In this sense, heat becomes both physiological stressor and psychological signal, intensifying worry about land, health, and the future. Another major finding was that climate stress can intensify domestic insecurity and violence. Household conflict, fear, verbal abuse, and physical aggression were linked to livelihood destruction, financial pressure, and displacement. This strongly supports literature showing that climate events can heighten the risk of gender-based violence by worsening stress, poverty, displacement, and service disruption (Van Daalen et al., 2022 ). The significance of this finding lies in how it locates climate harm within intimate space. The home did not remain a refuge from environmental instability. In some cases, it became another site where climate stress was absorbed and displaced. This sharpens an important insight in feminist climate scholarship, namely that environmental crisis is lived through domestic relations as much as through fields, farms, or coastlines. Feminist Political Ecology helps interpret this by showing that power, vulnerability, and survival are negotiated within gendered household relations, not only between communities and the environment (Agarwal, 1997 ; Elmhirst, 2011 ). The findings therefore make clear that climate related mental distress cannot be adequately understood without attention to how environmental pressures reshape authority, frustration, and insecurity within the home. The findings on displacement trauma extend this argument by showing that relocation is not only a technical adaptation issue, but also a profound psychosocial rupture. The loss of home, ancestral land, community ties, and cultural continuity emerged as a source of grief, disorientation, and lingering sadness. This is consistent with research from the Volta Delta showing that planned relocation can negatively affect anxiety and wellbeing even when it is intended to reduce exposure to risk (Abu et al., 2024 ). It also resonates with Cannings et al. ( 2024 ), who link wellbeing in coastal Ghana to environmental conditions, hazard fears, and threatened livelihoods, and with Heath ( 2025 ), who argues that adaptation must be judged partly by its psychosocial consequences. A central insight here is that home is not merely a physical shelter. It is memory, belonging, kinship, and self location. The findings therefore suggest that climate related displacement should be understood as an emotional and cultural wound as much as a spatial shift. Feminist Political Ecology illuminates this because it insists that people’s relationships to land are shaped by history, livelihood, and identity, while the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping helps explain why displacement may be appraised as profound loss rather than neutral relocation. At the same time, the study does not portray women only as overwhelmed subjects of harm. The findings on resilience show that coping is often relational, situated, and socially organized. Social support networks emerged as a foundational resource through which women shared emotional burdens, exchanged practical help, and sustained one another through crisis. This aligns closely with Abunyewah et al. ( 2024 ), who found that social capital can moderate the mental health effects of drought in Ghana, and with Hagan et al. ( 2025 ), who show that social support is central to coping with coastal climate distress. The present study adds further depth by showing that support operates through everyday reciprocity, not only through formal programs. Childcare, food sharing, savings groups, and emotional companionship functioned as forms of collective endurance. From the perspective of the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, these relationships expand available coping resources and reduce the isolating weight of threat appraisal (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984 ; Folkman, 2008 ). From the perspective of Feminist Political Ecology, they also reveal that adaptation is embedded in social relations and mutual obligation, not solely in technical intervention. The findings on spirituality and prayer are especially important because they reveal a form of coping that is often underestimated in climate and mental health analysis. Faith did not simply provide symbolic comfort. It offered women a way to interpret suffering, regulate distress, and preserve a sense of hope in situations where many climate stressors remained beyond their direct control. This finding is consistent with Hagan et al. ( 2025 ), who identified spirituality as a central coping mechanism in coastal Ghana. It also connects closely with later developments in the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, particularly Folkman’s argument that meaning focused coping becomes crucial in chronic and uncontrollable hardship (Folkman, 1997 ; Folkman, 2008 ). In the present study, prayer functioned as an emotional practice of endurance, surrender, and inner stabilization. It helped interrupt despair by giving women a moral and spiritual language through which to carry burden. This is a significant contribution because it shows that mental health under climate change cannot be fully understood through secular or clinical categories alone. It must also be read through culturally embedded forms of meaning making. The findings further show that women’s coping was not restricted to emotional survival. Many women engaged in practical adaptation strategies that restored agency and reduced helplessness. Livelihood diversification, savings, relocation planning, and collective problem solving all emerged as ways of creating room for action within uncertainty. This aligns with Ghanaian livelihoods research showing that households already respond to climatic stress through multiple coping and adaptation strategies, including on-farm and off-farm diversification (Aniah et al., 2019 ; Boansi et al., 2023 ). The present study extends this work by highlighting the psychological significance of these strategies. Adaptation was not only about income. It also mattered because it gave women a sense of possibility, movement, and control. The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping helps explain this as a shift in appraisal, where threat becomes at least partially manageable through problem-focused action (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984 ). Feminist Political Ecology likewise helps show that women are not merely victims of environmental change, but active agents navigating structural constraint through practical knowledge, social networks, and everyday innovation. The findings on grassroots initiatives strengthen this interpretation further by showing that resilience can become collective, organized, and political. Women’s groups involved in climate-resilient farming, preparedness, and community advocacy did more than transfer skills. They helped transform fear into knowledge, isolation into solidarity, and uncertainty into purposeful action. This resonates with research on women’s empowerment and irrigation in northern Ghana, which suggests that adaptation initiatives can improve agency and well-being even when structural constraints remain strong (Bryan & Garner, 2022 ; Bryan & Mekonnen, 2023 ). A key contribution of the present study is that it demonstrates how grassroots organizing itself can be psychologically protective. Collective action created spaces in which women could reclaim competence, develop shared language around climate threats, and participate more actively in local adaptation processes. This is precisely the kind of agency-centred reading that Feminist Political Ecology makes possible. It reminds us that women’s relationship to climate change is shaped not only by suffering, but also by their capacity to produce knowledge, mobilize resources, and act together within unequal environments. Conclusion This study set out to examine how climate change shapes stress, trauma, and resilience among women in Ghana, and the findings make one point unmistakably clear: climate change is not only altering land, livelihoods, and weather patterns, but also reshaping women’s emotional worlds. Across Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, women’s mental well-being was affected by environmental instability, livelihood insecurity, caregiving burdens, heat stress, domestic insecurity, and displacement-related loss. These pressures were not experienced as isolated events. Rather, they accumulated through everyday struggles to secure water, food, income, care, safety, and belonging under worsening ecological uncertainty. In this sense, the study shows that climate-related mental distress is socially produced and gendered, emerging through the interaction between environmental disruption and unequal expectations that women will absorb hardship and sustain household life. The study also demonstrates that women’s experiences of climate change cannot be reduced to vulnerability alone. While the findings reveal significant forms of stress, fear, sadness, exhaustion, and trauma, they also show that women actively negotiate these pressures through social support, spirituality, livelihood adaptation, and collective organizing. Resilience in this study was not an abstract personal trait. It was relational, practical, and culturally grounded. It was built through family ties, mutual aid, prayer, savings groups, local knowledge, and women-led initiatives that transformed uncertainty into purposeful action. This challenges narrow understandings of both vulnerability and adaptation. Women are not merely recipients of climate harm, nor are they simply objects of policy intervention. They are active interpreters, negotiators, and agents of survival within deeply unequal conditions. Overall, this study contributes to climate change scholarship in Ghana by bringing mental health into debates that have often centered livelihoods, food systems, and adaptation planning while leaving emotional well-being in the background. It highlights the need for climate policy, adaptation programming, and community interventions to treat women’s mental health as a central dimension of climate vulnerability. Effective responses must therefore integrate psychosocial support, gender responsive adaptation, and community-based resilience mechanisms. Climate action must be judged not only by whether it protects assets and reduces exposure, but also by whether it protects dignity, emotional stability, and the social relations that sustain life. By centring women’s voices, this study shows that mental health is central to climate justice in Ghana and other vulnerable settings across Africa. It calls for future research that closely follows women across seasons and climate conditions over time. Declarations Ethics approval This study was approved by the McGill University Research Ethics Board and was conducted in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations governing research involving human participants. Approval was granted under REB File Number: 24-09-061. Clinical trial registration Not applicable. Consent to participate Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Consent for publication Participants were informed that anonymized data from the study could be used in academic publications. No identifying information is included in this manuscript. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Funding No funding was received for this study. 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Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 1041–1170). Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-7/?utm Kallio H, Pietilä A-M, Johnson M, Kangasniemi M. Systematic methodological review: Developing a framework for a qualitative semi-structured interview guide. J Adv Nurs. 2016;72(12):2954–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13031 . Künzel RG, Wade CG, Gelaye B, Williams MA. The neuropsychiatric toll of rising temperatures on women’s health in low-income and middle-income countries: A scoping review. BMJ Global Health. 2025;10(12):e021455. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2025-021455 . Lawson ET, Alare RS, Salifu ARZ, Thompson-Hall M. Dealing with climate change in semi-arid Ghana: Understanding intersectional perceptions and adaptation strategies of women farmers. GeoJournal. 2020;85(2):439–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-019-09974-4 . Lazarus RS. Emotion and adaptation. Oxford University Press; 1991. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/emotion-and-adaptation-9780195069945?cc=ca⟨=en&utm . Lazarus RS. Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. Springer Publishing Company; 1999. Lazarus RS, Folkman S. Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company; 1984. (National Library of Medicine Catalog). Lewins A, Churchard A, Kennedy-Williams P. The mental health impact of the climate and ecological crisis on vulnerable populations in Africa. Cogent Mental Health. 2025;4(1):1–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/28324765.2025.2500747 . Lincoln YS, Guba EG. Naturalistic inquiry. SAGE; 1985. Merriam SB, Tisdell EJ. Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. 4th ed. Jossey-Bass; 2016. Mostert CM, Kumar M, Ngugi A, Shah J, Bosire E, Aballa A, Atwoli L, Merali Z. (2025). The impact of climate shocks exposure to depressive and suicidal ideations among female population in Kilifi rural areas, Kenya. eBioMedicine , 116 , 105774. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.105774 Ndifoin BN, Kanmounye US, Kukuia KKE, Endomba FT, Noula AGM, Jumbam DT. Climate Change and Mental Health in Africa: A Scoping Review. Annals Global Health. 2026;92(1):5. https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.5110 . Nightingale AJ. The nature of gender: Work, gender, and environment. Environ Plann D: Soc Space. 2006;24(2):165–85. https://doi.org/10.1068/d01k . Nightingale AJ. Bounding difference: Intersectionality and the material production of gender, caste, class and environment in Nepal. Geoforum. 2011;42(2):153–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.03.004 . Nowell LS, Norris JM, White DE, Moules NJ. Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. Int J Qualitative Methods. 2017;16:1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847 . 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Romanello M, Walawender M, Hsu S-C, Moskeland A, Palmeiro-Silva Y, Scamman D, Ali Z, Ameli N, Angelova D, Ayeb-Karlsson S, Basart S, Beagley J, Beggs PJ, Blanco-Villafuerte L, Cai W, Callaghan M, Campbell-Lendrum D, Chambers JD, Chicmana-Zapata V, Costello A. The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: Facing record-breaking threats from delayed action. Lancet. 2024;404(10465):1847–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01822-1 . Shenton AK. Strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects. Educ Inform. 2004;22(2):63–75. https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-2004-22201 . Sultana F. Political ecology 1: From margins to center. Prog Hum Geogr. 2021;45(1):156–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132520936751 . Terry G, Hayfield N, Clarke V, Braun V. (2017). Thematic analysis. In C. Willig & W. Stainton Rogers, editors, The SAGE handbook of qualitative research in psychology (2nd ed., pp. 17–37). SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526405555.n2 Van Daalen KR, Kallesøe SS, Davey F, Dada S, Jung L, Singh L, Issa R, Emilian CA, Kuhn I, Keygnaert I, Nilsson M. Extreme events and gender-based violence: A mixed-methods systematic review. Lancet Planet Health. 2022;6(6):e504–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(22)00088-2 . World Bank Group. (2022). Ghana country climate and development report . https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2022/10/31/country-climate-and-development-report-ccdr-for-ghana World Bank Group. Ghana Country Climate and Development Report. Washington, DC: World Bank; 2022. https://doi.org/10.1596/38209 . World Bank. (2022). P177261: Gender and climate adaptation in rural Sub-Saharan Africa (Report No. 099945110272227913). https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099945110272227913/pdf/P1772610ec78640c40be7e027e5c6ea517f.pdf World Health Organization (WHO). (2022). Mental health and climate change: Policy brief (No. 9789240045125). World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240045125?utm Yin RK. Case study research and applications: Design and methods. 6th ed. SAGE; 2018. Zavala MD, Cejas C, Rubinstein A, Lopez A. Gender Inequities in the Impact of Climate Change on Health: A Scoping Review. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2024;21(8):1093. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21081093 . Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. 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This growing concern is not only about rising temperatures, coastal erosion, erratic rainfall, and recurrent flooding, but also about how these environmental changes are reshaping wellbeing, security, and the conditions of daily life. Evidence from the World Bank shows that since 1960 Ghana\u0026rsquo;s average annual temperature has risen by about 1\u0026deg;C, rainfall has become more variable, and sea level rise has intensified coastal erosion, floods, droughts, and heat waves along the West African coast (World Bank Group, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Another World Bank analysis further warns that flooding affects around 45,000 Ghanaians annually and that, without urgent action, climate change could push an additional one million people into poverty by 2050 (World Bank, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR61\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). The Lancet Countdown\u0026rsquo;s Ghana profile likewise indicates that exposure to extreme heat is worsening, with annual heatwave days for infants and older adults now more than five times higher than the 1986 to 2005 baseline period (Romanello et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR54\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). This underscores that climate change in Ghana is no longer only an environmental issue. It is also a growing social and human wellbeing concern.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn Ghana, efforts to respond to climate change have largely focused on adaptation planning, disaster risk reduction, food systems, livelihoods, and infrastructure protection. While these are essential priorities, evidence suggests that the mental and emotional dimensions of climate change remain comparatively underexamined. Akakpo et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) argue that climate and health discussions in Ghana are still relatively limited, even though climate change is already intensifying health risks and requires stronger community-based research that can connect lived realities to policy response. Across Africa more broadly, the literature on climate change and mental health remains thin relative to the scale of the problem. Lewins et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) found that women, farmers, migrants, rural residents, and survivors of climate related trauma are among the groups most exposed to climate linked mental health harms, while Ndifoin et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2026\u003c/span\u003e) similarly show that drought, flooding, and sea level rise are increasingly associated with anxiety, persistent stress, reduced wellbeing, and post traumatic symptoms. This suggests that the impacts of climate change cannot be understood only in terms of livelihoods lost or infrastructure damaged. They must also be understood in terms of how environmental instability is carried into the mind, the body, and the social relations through which people endure everyday uncertainty.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSome social groups are particularly vulnerable to these pressures, and women are among the most affected. Climate change does not unfold in gender neutral ways. Rather, it interacts with existing inequalities in labor, care, mobility, access to resources, and decision-making power. Evidence from a cross-national analysis of 163 national adaptation plans shows that even where the gendered dimensions of climate change are acknowledged, women\u0026rsquo;s health, wellbeing, and welfare are still not consistently prioritized in adaptation planning (Pinho-Gomes et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR52\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). Related scholarship has further shown that women\u0026rsquo;s physical and mental health burdens are intensified by the interaction between environmental crisis and unequal access to protection, resources, and care (Ameyaw et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). In the Ghanaian context, this is especially significant because women often bear primary responsibility for food provisioning, water collection, caregiving, and household continuity under conditions of increasing environmental strain.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDespite growing recognition of women\u0026rsquo;s climate vulnerability, important gaps remain in the literature. Existing research in Ghana has documented recurring flooding, livelihood disruption, and gendered vulnerability, but has paid less attention to how climate stress is experienced in emotional and psychological terms. Studies from Old Fadama and Oforikrom Municipality show that recurrent flooding is associated with stress, anxiety, depression, and post traumatic symptoms, and that these effects are often gender differentiated (Adams \u0026amp; Nyantakyi-Frimpong, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Asante et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). However, the available evidence remains fragmented. It is stronger on hazard exposure than on emotional worlds, stronger on urban flood settings than on comparative ecological contexts, and still limited in how it captures women\u0026rsquo;s own accounts of stress, trauma, and resilience across different climate frontlines. There is also limited understanding of how women interpret these experiences in everyday life, how social roles and care responsibilities shape their mental wellbeing, and how they draw on support systems, faith, and practical coping strategies in response.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis study addresses that gap by examining the mental health dimensions of climate change among women in Ghana. While existing research has shown that climate change disrupts livelihoods, food systems, health, and social relations, less attention has been paid to how these disruptions are lived psychologically and emotionally. Yet climate related uncertainty, environmental loss, displacement, and everyday insecurity can shape not only material wellbeing but also stress, fear, sadness, exhaustion, and trauma. This study therefore explores how women experience the mental and emotional burdens associated with a changing climate, how these experiences are shaped by their social roles and livelihood responsibilities, and how women identify and mobilize forms of resilience through social support, faith, cultural meaning systems, and practical coping strategies. In doing so, the study broadens current debates on climate vulnerability by bringing mental health into the discussion and by showing that climate change in Ghana is not only an environmental or economic crisis, but also a deeply human one that affects how people feel, endure, and make sense of life under conditions of growing uncertainty.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Literature Review","content":"\u003cp\u003eClimate change is an increasingly important concern in contemporary scholarship, not only because of its effects on temperature, ecosystems, and agricultural production, but also because of its implications for health and human wellbeing (Charlson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2022; World Health Organization [WHO], 2022). This growing concern is no longer limited to questions of environmental degradation or economic loss. It is also about how climate instability reshapes the emotional and psychological conditions of life. The IPCC (2022) shows that climate change threatens health and wellbeing through interconnected pathways that include displacement, livelihood disruption, food insecurity, weakened social systems, and repeated exposure to environmental shocks, while WHO (2022) identifies mental health as a priority area for climate action because psychological distress is already emerging as a major consequence of climate disruption. Charlson et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) further document a broad global evidence base linking climate related exposures to anxiety, depression, stress, trauma, and other adverse mental health outcomes. This underscores that climate change is no longer understood only as an environmental or developmental issue. It is also increasingly recognized as a mental health concern.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe growing literature on climate change and mental health has also moved beyond an earlier emphasis on spectacular disasters alone. More recent scholarship shows that climate related mental distress is often generated through slower, cumulative, and less visible pressures, including repeated crop failure, failed adaptation, bodily exhaustion, ecological uncertainty, and the grief associated with watching familiar environments deteriorate over time (Charlson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Cosh et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Cianconi et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) argue that climate change undermines mental wellbeing not only through acute disasters, but also through the persistent erosion of everyday life and the dread associated with uncertain futures. This is particularly important in African settings, where climate stress frequently unfolds through livelihood erosion, fragile welfare systems, poor infrastructure, and weak institutional support rather than through well-resourced systems of recovery. Evidence from recent African reviews shows that climate related mental health burdens remain under researched across the continent, even though drought, flooding, sea level rise, and displacement are already associated with worsening psychosocial wellbeing, anxiety, persistent stress, and post traumatic symptoms (Lewins et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Ndifoin et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2026\u003c/span\u003e). This suggests that current scholarship has begun to recognize the problem, but full understanding is still lacking.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWomen occupy a particularly important place in this literature because climate distress does not unfold in socially neutral ways. It is filtered through gendered divisions of labor, authority, care, and obligation (Delavallade et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). Reviews of gender and climate health consistently show that women often confront overlapping burdens that include food provision, water collection, caregiving, reproductive labor, limited control over productive assets, and weaker access to adaptation resources (Anjum \u0026amp; Aziz, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Zavala et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). These inequalities do not only increase exposure to environmental risk. They also shape how climate change is emotionally lived and socially managed within households and communities. Anjum and Aziz (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) specifically identify mental health challenges and increased caregiving demands as part of the gendered health burden of climate change, while Zavala et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) demonstrate that mental health, reproductive health, and unpaid care labor repeatedly intersect in the climate and gender literature. This highlights that women\u0026rsquo;s mental distress under climate change cannot be treated simply as an individual response to environmental pressure. It is also produced through the unequal expectations that women will absorb scarcity, sustain households, and preserve family wellbeing under worsening conditions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eGhanaian scholarship gives this argument stronger contextual depth. Studies on women farmers in semi-arid Ghana show that women\u0026rsquo;s experiences of climate variability are shaped not only by ecological exposure, but also by household power, age, residence, and access to resources (Lawson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Adzawla et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e) similarly found that climate impacts on livelihoods were often more severe for women than for men, while men tended to report greater adaptive capacity. This points to a gender gap with important implications for vulnerability, dependency, and everyday stress. In this context, women are not simply exposed to climate shocks as farmers, traders, or household members. They are also expected to secure food, preserve children\u0026rsquo;s welfare, fetch water, and maintain domestic continuity in times of scarcity. The result is a double burden in which productive labour and reproductive labour intensify each other (Adzawla et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). In effect, climate variability not only threatens crops and income. It also threatens the moral, emotional, and practical labour through which women are expected to keep households functioning, often with inadequate institutional support (Adzawla et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Lawson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). This makes Ghana an especially important setting for examining how climate-related pressures are translated into mental and emotional strain.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe livelihoods literature from Ghana further shows that climate stress is frequently expressed through food insecurity, harvest failure, and unstable household reproduction. Asare Nuamah (2021) found that climate variability significantly undermined subsistence agriculture in rural Ghana and that many households experienced food anxiety and inadequate access to preferred food quantity and quality. Aniah et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e) showed that smallholder farmers in the savanna agroecological zone respond to ecological and climatic pressures through a combination of coping, on farm, and off farm strategies, while Boansi et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e) found that households facing harvest failure in northern Ghana often resort to multiple coping strategies under severe constraint. These studies reveal that climate stress is embedded in repeated improvisation under scarcity rather than in isolated moments of crisis. When read through a mental health lens, the implications are significant. Food anxiety, recurring adaptation, and the normalization of household strain create conditions in which worry, exhaustion, emotional overload, and chronic distress are likely to take root, especially for women whose social value is often tied to care and provisioning (Asare Nuamah, 2021; Boansi et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). This highlights that livelihood stress and psychological stress are not separate issues, but closely connected dimensions of climate vulnerability.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAlthough much Ghanaian research has focused on livelihoods and adaptation, a smaller but increasingly important body of work addresses mental health more directly. Abunyewah et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) found in semi-arid Ghana that drought impact had statistically significant positive associations with depression, anxiety, and stress among peri urban farmers, while personal social capital moderated some of these effects. This is important because it moves beyond general claims about vulnerability and demonstrates measurable mental health consequences tied to environmental stress. Asante et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) similarly show that flood risk perception in urban Ghana is associated with stress, anxiety, depression, and post traumatic symptoms, with gender differentiated patterns of impact. Hagan et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) provide qualitative evidence from poor urban coastal communities in Ghana, where sea level rise, property loss, livelihood disruption, hopelessness, anxiety, spirituality, and social support all emerged as central features of people\u0026rsquo;s accounts. These studies suggest that climate related mental distress in Ghana is not hypothetical. It is already visible in empirical research, even though the field remains fragmented and limited in scope.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSome aspects of this literature are especially relevant for understanding trauma. Research on coastal change and displacement in Ghana shows that adaptation through relocation does not automatically improve psychosocial wellbeing. Abu et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) found that planned relocation in the Volta Delta negatively affected wellbeing and anxiety when compared with similarly exposed communities that had not moved. Cannings et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) likewise show that wellbeing in the Volta Delta is deeply tied to environmental conditions, fears of hazard, and pressures on livelihoods and resource governance. Heath (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) extends this debate by arguing that adaptation must be assessed not only by whether it reduces exposure to risk, but also by how it affects identity, belonging, and wellbeing. This suggests that displacement is not simply a spatial shift. It is an emotional and cultural rupture that can unsettle memory, belonging, and continuity. Home, in this sense, is not only a shelter. It is a social and symbolic anchor, and its destabilization can produce lasting mental distress.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe literature also shows that climate stress can intensify violence and household conflict. Van Daalen et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e), in a mixed-methods systematic review, conclude that extreme weather and climate events can heighten the risk of gender-based violence through economic insecurity, food scarcity, service disruption, stress, and worsening inequality. This is particularly significant because it shows that climate change is not experienced only in fields, coastlines, or marketplaces. It is also experienced within intimate and domestic spaces. For women, the burden of climate change may therefore include fear of coercion, conflict, and abuse when household provision becomes insecure and social expectations around male provider roles become strained (Mostert et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Ndifoin et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2026\u003c/span\u003e). This highlights the need to understand climate vulnerability not only in environmental or economic terms, but also in relation to gendered power and domestic insecurity.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHeat is another important but sometimes neglected dimension of this scholarship. Research increasingly shows that high ambient temperature affects not only physical health, but also psychiatric and neurocognitive outcomes, especially among women in low- and middle-income settings whose labor often continues despite extreme heat exposure (K\u0026uuml;nzel et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). The IPCC (2022) also identifies heat as a major climate-related health threat with implications for mental well-being, while Brown et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) found that women in Nairobi\u0026rsquo;s informal settlements reported higher anxiety and depression symptoms in relation to extreme weather, including drought and abnormal temperatures. In Ghana, especially in northern and low-income settings, heat is lived through headaches, fatigue, dehydration, disrupted sleep, market work, water collection, and food preparation. This means that heat is not simply background climate. It is part of the embodied experience of distress and an important pathway through which climate change affects women\u0026rsquo;s mental wellbeing.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAt the same time, the literature does not portray women only as overwhelmed subjects of harm. One of its clearest insights is that resilience is often relational, culturally grounded, and socially produced rather than purely individual. Hagan et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) found that social support, spirituality, and community coping mechanisms were central to how people managed climate-related mental distress in coastal Ghana, while Abunyewah et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) show that social capital can buffer the mental health effects of drought. Research on women\u0026rsquo;s empowerment and irrigation in northern Ghana also suggests that adaptation initiatives can improve agency and well-being, even though such gains remain constrained by broader social norms and unequal access to resources (Bryan \u0026amp; Garner, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Bryan \u0026amp; Mekonnen, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). This highlights that resilience under climate change is not simply about inner strength. It is also about access to relationships, institutions, shared meanings, and material resources that help women endure and respond to crisis.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eTheoretical Framework\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis study was guided by Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping. Together, these perspectives provide a strong basis for examining how climate change shapes women\u0026rsquo;s mental health in Ghana as a product of both structural inequality and lived psychological experience. Rather than treating stress, trauma, and resilience as purely personal states, the framework situates them within gendered relations of labor, resource access, environmental change, and everyday survival. In this sense, women\u0026rsquo;s accounts of fear, sadness, exhaustion, and coping are understood not as isolated reactions, but as experiences produced within wider ecological and social relations of power.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFeminist Political Ecology offers the first major lens for the study. Emerging from feminist critiques of mainstream political ecology, this perspective argues that environmental change is never socially neutral because access to land, water, labor, knowledge, and decision making is structured through gendered power relations (Rocheleau et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1996\u003c/span\u003e; Agarwal, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1992\u003c/span\u003e; Elmhirst, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). Rocheleau et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1996\u003c/span\u003e) showed that ecological processes must be read alongside questions of gender, livelihood, and everyday resource control, while Agarwal (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1992\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1997\u003c/span\u003e) demonstrated that women\u0026rsquo;s environmental knowledge and vulnerability are shaped by material inequalities rather than by any essential closeness to nature. Later scholars such as Nightingale (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR48\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e), Elmhirst (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e), Harcourt and Nelson (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e), and Sultana (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) further deepened this perspective by emphasizing embodiment, subjectivity, care, everyday practice, and the politics of social reproduction under environmental stress. Feminist Political Ecology is therefore especially useful for this study because it draws attention to who fetches water, who secures food, who absorbs household strain, who sacrifices first during scarcity, and whose labor remains invisible in adaptation processes (Rocheleau et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1996\u003c/span\u003e; Nightingale, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR48\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Sultana, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). It makes clear that climate change is not experienced only as drought, flooding, heat, or coastal erosion, but through the gendered organization of daily life. In Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, this lens helps show that women\u0026rsquo;s mental distress is tied not only to environmental exposure, but also to the unequal burdens they carry in sustaining households and communities under worsening climatic uncertainty.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, developed by Lazarus and Folkman (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e), provides a complementary psychological lens. This theory defines stress not as a fixed stimulus or a simple emotional reaction, but as a dynamic transaction between the individual and the environment, shaped by how a situation is appraised and by the coping resources perceived to be available (Lazarus and Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e; Lazarus, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1991\u003c/span\u003e). Primary appraisal concerns whether an event is experienced as threatening, harmful, or challenging, while secondary appraisal concerns whether one feels capable of responding effectively (Lazarus and Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e; Lazarus, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1999\u003c/span\u003e). Coping, in this framework, includes both problem-focused strategies directed at changing the stressful condition and emotion-focused strategies aimed at regulating emotional distress (Lazarus and Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e; Folkman et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1986\u003c/span\u003e). Later work by Folkman (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1997\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) further showed that meaning-focused coping becomes especially important when people face chronic, uncontrollable, or repeated hardship. This insight is highly relevant to climate change, where many stressors are prolonged, cumulative, and only partly manageable. For this study, the theory helps explain how women interpret climate-related threats such as crop failure, sea encroachment, flooding, heat, displacement, caregiving overload, and livelihood insecurity, and how these appraisals shape fear, anxiety, sadness, fatigue, and trauma. It also helps illuminate the coping practices women mobilize, including prayer, social support, emotional endurance, livelihood diversification, and collective action.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCombined, Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping provide an integrated framework for understanding climate-related mental health as both socially structured and personally negotiated. Feminist Political Ecology clarifies how vulnerability is produced through gendered relations of labor, resources, and power (Rocheleau et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1996\u003c/span\u003e; Elmhirst, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Harcourt and Nelson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e), while the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping explains how these pressures are interpreted, managed, and lived at the level of everyday experience (Lazarus and Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e; Lazarus, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1991\u003c/span\u003e; Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e). In essence, they allow this study to connect women\u0026rsquo;s narratives of stress, trauma, and resilience to the broader ecological, social, and psychological processes that shape mental health under a changing climate.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Methodology","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study adopted a qualitative multiple case study design to examine how climate change shapes stress, trauma, and resilience among women in Ghana. A qualitative approach was appropriate because the study sought to understand lived experiences, subjective meanings, and everyday coping processes that could not be adequately captured through standardized or purely quantitative methods (Creswell \u0026amp; Poth, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Merriam \u0026amp; Tisdell, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Terry et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). The multiple case study design was equally suitable because it allowed for in depth exploration across two ecologically distinct but climate vulnerable communities, making it possible to identify both shared patterns and place specific differences in how climate change affects women\u0026rsquo;s mental wellbeing (Yin, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Baxter \u0026amp; Jack, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe study was conducted in Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, two communities selected purposively because they represent contrasting ecological contexts of climate vulnerability in Ghana. Salakope was chosen as a coastal site marked by sea encroachment, flooding, displacement pressures, and the erosion of livelihoods and ancestral land. Choggu Yapalsi was selected as a northern inland site characterized by recurrent heat, water scarcity, rainfall variability, and agricultural insecurity. These two sites provided a useful basis for examining how different environmental pressures shape women\u0026rsquo;s experiences of stress, trauma, and resilience, while also revealing common patterns across diverse climate affected settings.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe study population comprised adult women in the two communities who had direct experience of climate related disruptions to livelihood, household welfare, or daily survival. Purposive sampling was used to recruit information rich participants with relevant knowledge and lived experience of the phenomenon under investigation (Patton, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Palinkas et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). The goal was not statistical representativeness, but depth, relevance, and experiential richness. Eligibility required that participants were adult women, had lived in the community long enough to observe environmental change over time, and had directly experienced at least one climate related stressor such as flooding, sea erosion, crop failure, water scarcity, displacement, or extreme heat. Recruitment was facilitated through community entry processes, local leaders, women\u0026rsquo;s groups, and informal referrals. The final sample size was sixteen women, drawn across the two study sites. Participants ranged in age from 30 to 60 years and reflected diverse livelihood activities and household responsibilities, thereby strengthening the range of perspectives captured.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eData were generated through in depth semi structured interviews. This method was appropriate because it enabled participants to describe their experiences in their own words while allowing the researcher to probe issues central to the study objectives, including environmental change, emotional distress, caregiving burdens, livelihood disruption, displacement, violence, and coping practices (Kallio et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Brinkmann \u0026amp; Kvale, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Interviews were conducted face to face in private, accessible, and participant preferred settings such as homes and community spaces. Because the study addressed sensitive issues, face to face engagement was important for building rapport, observing emotional cues, and creating a supportive environment for discussing fear, sadness, stress, and traumatic experience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e The interviews were conducted in local languages, specifically Dagbani, Twi, and Ewe, depending on the language most comfortable for each participant. Research assistants who understood these languages supported the interview process to ensure clear communication and accurate interpretation of participants\u0026rsquo; responses. This enabled participants to express their experiences fully and naturally in the language they used in everyday life. Each interview lasted between 50 and 90 minutes. With participants\u0026rsquo; consent, interviews were audio recorded and supplemented with field notes that captured contextual details, non verbal expressions, and emerging reflections. The recordings were later transcribed verbatim and translated into English for analysis, helping to preserve meaning while making the data accessible for systematic interpretation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe interview guide was informed by the study objectives and by the theoretical lenses of Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping. Questions explored participants\u0026rsquo; perceptions of climate change in their communities, the effects of environmental change on livelihoods and household wellbeing, the emotional and psychological burdens associated with these changes, and the ways women interpreted and managed stress in everyday life. The guide also examined caregiving responsibilities, experiences of displacement or domestic strain, access to support, spiritual practices, adaptation strategies, and participation in community initiatives.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eData analysis followed Attride Stirling\u0026rsquo;s (2001) Thematic Network Analysis. Transcripts were read repeatedly to build familiarity with the data and identify recurring patterns and emotionally significant narratives. Initial coding was undertaken for meaningful segments of text related to mental health impacts, environmental loss, caregiving burdens, violence, displacement, coping, and resilience. Coding was both inductive and theoretically informed. Related codes were grouped into basic themes, clustered into organizing themes, and synthesized into broader global themes that captured the major patterns across the dataset. This process generated the central themes reported in the findings, including eco anxiety and depression, the double burden of caregiving, heat related distress, violence and displacement trauma, and resilience through social support, spirituality, adaptation, and grassroots action. The codes and themes that emerged during the analysis have been provided in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e below.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSelected Codes, Subthemes, and Themes Identified in Analysis\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"4\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMain themes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSubthemes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRefined codes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEarly descriptive codes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"4\" rowspan=\"5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eImpacts of climate change on women\u0026rsquo;s mental health\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEco-anxiety and depression\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEcological loss; hopelessness; depressive distress\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFear of the rising sea; sadness over land loss; crying; loss of peace of mind; depression\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCaregiving burden and emotional exhaustion\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eWater stress; food insecurity; care overload; emotional strain\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLong walks for water; worrying about food; caring for children alone; constant planning; mental fatigue\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHeat-related physical and psychological distress\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHeat stress; bodily discomfort; anxiety; sleep disruption\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHeadaches; dizziness; racing heart; poor sleep; weakness from heat; fear of worsening climate\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eViolence and domestic insecurity\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHousehold conflict; verbal abuse; physical aggression; insecurity\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eQuarrels after livelihood loss; unsafe home; fear of partner; emotional insecurity\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTrauma of displacement and loss\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eForced relocation; grief; rootlessness; disrupted belonging\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLoss of home; loss of ancestral land; broken community ties; feeling like a stranger\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"3\" rowspan=\"4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eResilience and coping strategies\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSocial support networks\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFamily support; mutual aid; group support\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eShared childcare; food support; emotional comfort; women\u0026rsquo;s savings group assistance\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSpirituality and prayer\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFaith-based coping; hope; inner strength\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePrayer for strength; leaving burdens to God; spiritual comfort; courage through faith\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAdaptation strategies\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLivelihood diversification; savings; practical adjustment\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSoap making; petty trading; gardening; savings groups; relocation planning\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eGrassroots collective action\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCollective learning; preparedness; advocacy\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSeed testing; water harvesting; early warning training; community organizing\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRigor and trustworthiness were strengthened using established qualitative criteria (Lincoln \u0026amp; Guba, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1985\u003c/span\u003e; Shenton, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR55\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e). Credibility was enhanced through careful probing, close attention to participants\u0026rsquo; meanings, and the use of verbatim quotations. Dependability was supported through a consistent interview guide, systematic transcription, and a documented analytic process. Confirmability was strengthened by grounding interpretations closely in the data (Nowell et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). Ethical approval was obtained from the McGill University Research Ethics Board, REB File Number: 24-09-061. Participants provided informed consent, confidentiality was protected through anonymization, and interviews were conducted with empathy and care throughout.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eLimitations of the study\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study has important limitations. It drew on a small purposive sample of sixteen women from two climate-vulnerable communities in Ghana, Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, so the findings are not intended to be statistically representative of all women\u0026rsquo;s experiences across the country. The qualitative design privileged depth over breadth, offering rich insight into lived experience but limiting generalizability. Because participants were recruited through community-based networks and referrals, the study may have captured the views of women who were more visible, available, or willing to speak about distress and coping. Interviews were conducted in Dagbani, Twi, and Ewe with the support of research assistants and later translated into English, which may have affected the preservation of certain emotional nuances and culturally specific meanings. In addition, the findings rely on self-reported narratives, which may reflect recall bias and personal interpretation. Despite these limitations, the study offers credible, context-rich insight into women\u0026rsquo;s mental health under climate change in Ghana.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe study conducted in Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi revealed a shared pattern across both communities. The findings showed that climate change is not only disrupting land and livelihoods but also reshaping women\u0026rsquo;s mental well-being. The analysis found that environmental instability and economic insecurity combine with gendered expectations of care and provision to intensify psychological strain, especially where daily survival demands constant planning, sacrifice, and emotional restraint. However, the study also showed that women are not merely absorbing harm. It revealed active resilience built through social ties, faith-based practices, practical livelihood adjustments, and collective community action. The sections that follow substantiate these findings with direct quotes that anchor each theme in lived experience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eImpacts: Stress, Trauma, and Mental Health\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eEco Anxiety and Depression\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe psychological toll of environmental degradation manifests as a persistent and often debilitating sense of apprehension and sadness. In coastal communities like Salakope, the rising sea is not merely an environmental issue but a direct assault on mental well being. The relentless loss of property, ancestral land, and primary livelihoods such as fishing and trading erodes any sense of security or predictability about the future. This constant state of threat fosters a specific form of anxiety rooted in ecological loss, which can spiral into profound despair and clinical depression as individuals grieve their vanishing way of life and confront an increasingly precarious existence. The need for psychiatric care emerges when coping mechanisms are overwhelmed by the scale of loss and the perceived absence of solutions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOne participant described this erosion of hope, stating,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You watch the water come closer every year. It took the tree where my father\u0026rsquo;s shade was, then it took the wall of my compound. Now I just wait for it to take the rest. This waiting\u0026hellip; it fills your stomach with worry until you cannot eat. You feel a heavy sadness for what is gone and what will still go. Sometimes I sit and just look at the sea crying because I have no power to stop it.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 7, 48 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother voice illustrated the progression from anxiety to deeper psychological distress, explaining,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;After my fish smoking shed was washed away, something broke in me. The anxiety was there always, a shaking inside. But then it became a darkness. I had no motivation to rebuild again. I would forget things, my children\u0026rsquo;s words would not reach me. My family said I was sick in my spirit and took me to the hospital. The doctor said my mind was exhausted from the stress and gave me medicine for depression. The sea took my work and then it took my peace of mind.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 3, 52 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Double Burden of Caregiving\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClimate induced scarcity dramatically intensifies the traditional caregiving roles shouldered by women, creating a cascade of physical and mental exhaustion. Reduced water availability and compromised food security demand exponentially more labor, as women travel greater distances to fetch water and manage dwindling resources. This physical fatigue is compounded by acute mental exhaustion from the relentless calculation of how to stretch scant supplies. Furthermore, when male migration occurs in response to climate shocked agriculture, women are left as sole managers of household survival. This abandonment, though often economically necessary, multiplies their responsibilities and isolates them psychologically. They must bear the emotional weight of providing stability for children and the elderly amidst deepening uncertainty, significantly increasing their vulnerability to anxiety, distress, and a profound sense of being overwhelmed.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA participant from the northern community detailed the crushing daily cycle, saying,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The walk for water now starts in darkness. By the time I return, the sun is already hot, and my body is finished, but the day has not started. I must cook the little we have, clean, care for the children\u0026hellip; my mind is always planning, worrying\u0026hellip; did I fetch enough, will the millet last, what will I do if the child falls sick? There is no rest inside my head. It is a tiredness that sleep does not cure.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 11, 30 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother participant spoke to the psychological weight of abandonment, sharing,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;When he left for the city after the crops failed, the silence he left behind was heavier than the work. Now every problem is mine to solve alone. If the roof leaks, if there is no money for school, if his mother is sick\u0026hellip; the worry sits only on my heart. I must be both father and mother, but I am so tired. I feel alone with a mountain on my back, and some days I fear I will fall and everything will collapse.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 5, 45 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eExtreme Heat and Physical Mental Toll\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eRising temperatures inflict a direct and chronic physiological stress that translates into acute psychological distress. The experience of extreme heat is not merely discomfort but a full-body assault that undermines mental well-being. Chronic, debilitating headaches, dizziness, nausea, and sleep disruption become daily realities, creating a constant state of physical misery. This bodily strain directly fuels intense anxiety, as the body\u0026rsquo;s stress response is perpetually activated. The feeling that one\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;body perpetually believes it\u0026rsquo;s under attack\u0026rdquo; encapsulates this synergy. The heat also serves as a constant, oppressive reminder of the changing climate, generating anxiety about broader environmental collapse, water shortages, and failing health, thereby locking individuals in a cycle of physical suffering and psychological dread.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOne participant described this visceral experience, saying,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The heat is not outside anymore\u0026hellip; it is inside my head. It pounds here [points to temples] all day, a headache that makes thinking hard. My vision swims sometimes, and my heart races for no reason\u0026hellip; just the thick air. Your body feels like it is fighting all the time, buzzing with a sick worry. You cannot escape it, even in the shade. You just wait for the night, hoping for a cool breath, and dread the sun coming back.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 9, 41 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother voice connected the physical sensation to broader anxiety, explaining,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;This new heat\u0026hellip; it makes you feel weak and sick all the time. Your body is on edge. But it also makes your mind afraid. You think, if it is like this now, how will it be for my children? If the sun can make me so ill, what is it doing to the land? The dizziness is not just from the heat\u0026hellip; it is from the fear of what it means. It feels like the world is burning and you are trapped in the fire with no way out.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 15, 37 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec11\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eIncreased Risk of Violence\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe severe economic stress and displacement triggered by climate events act as powerful catalysts for domestic conflict and intimate partner violence. As livelihoods are destroyed and families are displaced, the resulting financial pressure, loss of status, and pervasive uncertainty fracture household stability. Men, socialized as primary providers, often experience a crisis of masculinity and profound frustration in the face of their inability to secure the family\u0026rsquo;s needs. This frustration, combined with the trauma of loss, is frequently displaced onto partners through verbal, emotional, and physical aggression. For women, the home ceases to be a sanctuary and becomes a place of heightened danger, where the climate crisis outside is mirrored by a crisis of safety within, drastically compounding their overall trauma and sense of insecurity.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA participant confided,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Since the flood ruined his workshop, he is a different man. The worry of no money eats him. He drinks the cheap gin and then his eyes change. Any small mistake\u0026hellip; the soup is late, the child is crying\u0026hellip; becomes a big quarrel. He shouts that I am a burden. Sometimes he pushes me. The fear is always there now\u0026hellip; not just of the next flood, but of his hands. Our home is not safe anymore.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 2, 38 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother participant revealed the link between displacement and conflict, stating,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;After we were moved from our land by the government because of the sea, we lived in one room with his brother\u0026rsquo;s family. The shame of having nothing, of being like a beggar in another man\u0026rsquo;s space\u0026hellip; it broke him. He would pick fights over nothing. He said I looked at him with pity. The violence\u0026hellip; it started there. The stress of losing everything outside turned our home into a battlefield. I was afraid of the sea, but then I became more afraid of the man I married.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 10, 49 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eTrauma from Displacement\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eForced relocation due to climate impacts is a profoundly traumatic event that extends far beyond physical movement. It represents a catastrophic rupture of identity, belonging, and history. The loss of a home is the loss of a repository of family memory, cultural continuity, and social networks that constitute the self. The destruction of homes and the severing of ties to ancestral land generate a profound, lingering grief akin to bereavement. This trauma is compounded by the loss of community cohesion and mutual support systems that are vital for psychological resilience. Displaced individuals often experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress, including intrusive memories of the loss, persistent sadness, and a deep sense of rootlessness and alienation, struggling to find meaning and connection in a new and often impoverished setting.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOne elder participant expressed this deep cultural and personal grief, saying,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;They moved us to this place, but my spirit is still there by the shore. That land held the bones of my grandparents and the footprints of my childhood. A house not just sticks and mud\u0026hellip; it is the stories in the walls. To lose it to the water is to have your past erased. I dream of the old village\u0026hellip; the sounds, the paths. I wake up here and my heart is heavy with missing. I am a stranger in this new place, and a ghost in my own life.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 14, 60 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother displaced woman spoke of the ongoing psychological rupture, explaining,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The day they said we must leave, it was like a death. We lost our neighbors, the women I laughed with, the children who grew together. Now we are scattered. The new settlement has no soul, no history. I feel disconnected, like a tree pulled up by its roots. I look at my grandchildren and I cry because I cannot show them where I came from\u0026hellip; it is gone. This loss is a wound that does not heal. You just learn to carry the ache every day.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 8, 53 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eResilience and Coping Strategies\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eSocial Support Networks\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the face of systemic climate threats, the most fundamental and frequently deployed form of resilience emerges from the intricate web of social relationships. These networks, encompassing extended family, neighbors, and community kin, function as a vital psychological and practical safety net. They provide a buffer against the isolating effects of trauma by offering shared emotional space for expressing fear and grief, thereby normalizing distress and reducing the burden of carrying it alone. Practically, these networks facilitate the exchange of critical resources, from shared childcare during long treks for water to loans of food or capital when livelihoods are interrupted. This reciprocal interdependence transforms individual vulnerability into collective endurance, reinforcing the idea that survival is a communal project rather than a solitary struggle.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOne participant highlighted the emotional sustenance derived from these bonds, stating,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;When the worry closes in on me, I go to my cousin\u0026rsquo;s house. We don\u0026rsquo;t always need to speak of the big problems. Sometimes we just sit, shelling groundnuts together. Her presence is a comfort. She might say, \u0026lsquo;I also could not sleep last night, thinking of the river.\u0026rsquo; And just knowing my fear is not mine alone\u0026hellip; it makes the weight lighter. We hold each other\u0026rsquo;s spirit up.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 6, 55 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother participant illustrated the material and practical support, explaining,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;After the last flood washed away my vegetable patch, I had nothing to sell. For two months, it was my women\u0026rsquo;s \u003cem\u003esusu\u003c/em\u003e group that saved us. They contributed so I could buy new seeds and feed my children. And when I was sick from the stress, my neighbor\u0026rsquo;s daughter came every day to fetch water for me. This is how we live. Your problem becomes my problem, and my strength becomes yours. Alone we would break, but together we find a way to bend and not snap.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 1, 50 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec15\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eSpirituality and Prayer\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor many women, spirituality and devout prayer constitute a central psychological framework for processing hardship and managing profound stress. Faith provides a narrative that transcends the immediate, uncontrollable chaos of environmental collapse, situating suffering within a larger, divine order. This practice offers more than solace; it is an active coping mechanism that fosters internal resilience. Through prayer, women articulate their anxieties, relinquish feelings of helplessness to a higher power, and cultivate a sense of patience and fortitude. It provides a daily ritual of hope and a mental sanctuary, enabling them to face relentless adversity with a perceived sense of spiritual support and purpose, which is crucial for maintaining mental equilibrium in the absence of tangible security.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA participant described prayer as her foundational source of strength, saying,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Before the sun touches the land, I am on my knees. I pour out my heart to God\u0026hellip; the fear of the sea, the sickness in my body from worry, the hunger in my children\u0026rsquo;s eyes. I leave it all there. When I stand up, my burden feels shared. The Bible says He is a rock and a fortress, so I imagine my mind hiding in that fortress when the storms of life come. It does not change the rising water, but it changes how I stand inside myself to face it. My faith is the anchor that keeps my soul from drowning in despair.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 10, 49 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother voice emphasized its role in managing daily stress, explaining,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You cannot fight the sun for shining too hot or the rains for not falling. So, what can you do? You pray. When the walk for water is too long, I pray with every step. When my husband is gone and the night is lonely, I pray for safety. It is my conversation with the universe. It stops my mind from running to dark places. It gives me a kind of quiet courage. I tell myself, \u0026lsquo;If God has brought you to this challenge, He will see you through it.\u0026rsquo; This belief is the fuel for my endurance.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 4, 36 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eAdaptation Strategies\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eMoving beyond passive endurance, many women engage in proactive adaptation strategies that actively reshape their relationship with the changing environment. These strategies, from livelihood diversification to planned relocation, are critical for restoring a sense of agency and combating the helplessness that fuels anxiety. By diversifying income, such as integrating small-scale dry-season gardening, petty trading, or artisanal work alongside failing primary activities, women create alternative pathways for survival, directly mitigating economic risk. For coastal residents, the collective planning of relocation to safer areas represents a profound forward-looking strategy. This process, though fraught with difficulty, transforms them from passive victims of displacement into active architects of their future, providing a tangible goal that can supplant feelings of hopelessness with purposeful action.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOne participant spoke about the psychological benefit of diversifying her livelihood, sharing,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I saw the rains becoming a trick, so I knew only farming my father\u0026rsquo;s way would mean hunger. I learned from an NGO how to make soap and shea butter. Now, even when the maize fails, I have something to sell at the market. This small thing\u0026hellip; it changed my mind. I am not just waiting for the clouds anymore. I have a plan B. It makes me feel clever and strong, like I can outsmart the problem. The anxiety is less because I have another door to knock on.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 8, 43 years, female, Choggu Yapalsi Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother participant detailed the hope embedded in collective relocation planning, stating,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We know this coastline is dying. So, we women have started a savings group called \u0026lsquo;Beyond the Wave.\u0026rsquo; Every week we contribute a little. We are researching land further inland together. Talking about it, planning it\u0026hellip; it gives us a future to look at. Instead of crying over what the sea takes, we are building a dream of what we can create somewhere else. The action itself is medicine. It turns our fear into a map. We are not just being pushed; we are preparing to move with dignity.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 12, 47 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec17\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eGrassroots Initiatives\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eParticipation in locally organized, women-led grassroots initiatives represents a powerful form of collective resilience that merges education, activism, and community mobilization. These networks, such as those focused on climate-resilient farming or disaster preparedness, serve multiple psychological functions. They transform isolated individuals into informed members of a collective movement, directly countering feelings of powerlessness. By learning and teaching sustainable techniques, women reclaim expertise and authority over their environment. Furthermore, these groups provide a structured platform for solidarity, where shared struggles are channeled into shared solutions. This active engagement fosters a sense of ownership over the adaptation process, building not just practical skills but also political identity and collective hope, which are essential components of long-term psychological resilience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA participant active in a farming cooperative explained its empowering effect, saying,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;In our \u0026lsquo;Seeds of Strength\u0026rsquo; group, we are not just victims of the bad weather. We are experimenters. We test drought-resistant seeds, and we learn water harvesting. When I teach another woman what I\u0026rsquo;ve learned, I feel my value. We are writing a new book on how to farm in this new world, and we are the authors. Meeting with these women every week fills my cup. We share our fears, yes, but then we share solutions. It makes me feel we are not just surviving the change\u0026hellip; we are smartly adapting to it, together.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 13, 52 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother leader of a preparedness network described its broader impact, stating,\u003cdiv class=\"BlockQuote\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;After the big flood, we formed the \u0026lsquo;Volta Watchdogs.\u0026rsquo; We train women to read early warning signs, to secure their documents, to have an evacuation plan. Knowledge is power. Before, a dark cloud meant only panic. Now, it means a sequence of actions we take together. This work has given us a voice. We meet with chiefs and assemblymen. We are no longer just waiting for help; we are demanding it and showing how. The initiative has given us back our courage. It has turned our anxiety into organization, and our grief into a plan to protect what we have left.\u0026rdquo; (\u003cem\u003eParticipant 16, 45 years, female, Salakope Community\u003c/em\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis discussion draws on the study\u0026rsquo;s findings alongside relevant scholarship to explain how climate change reshapes women\u0026rsquo;s mental health through stress, trauma, and resilience in Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi. Guided by Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, it situates these experiences within gendered relations of labor, care, environmental change, and everyday survival rather than treating them as isolated emotional reactions. The analysis shows that climate related mental distress is produced through the convergence of ecological instability, livelihood disruption, household insecurity, and unequal care responsibilities. It also shows that women\u0026rsquo;s responses are not limited to suffering alone. They include relational, spiritual, practical, and collective forms of coping that help women endure and negotiate worsening climatic uncertainty.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis study found that climate-related mental distress among women in Ghana is produced through a layered set of pressures that operate simultaneously at the level of environmental change, household reproduction, livelihood insecurity, and social expectation. The findings show that stress, sadness, fear, exhaustion, and trauma are not reducible to one climatic event or one discrete shock. Instead, they emerge through the accumulation of environmental loss, unstable income, disrupted care routines, and the continuous emotional labor of trying to hold daily life together. This pattern aligns with scholarship showing that climate related mental health harms develop not only after sudden disasters, but also through slower and more cumulative processes of uncertainty, ecological degradation, and chronic insecurity (Charlson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Cianconi et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; IPCC, 2022). At the same time, the findings add important contextual depth by showing how these pressures take shape in two distinct Ghanaian settings where climatic exposure differs, but where women still shoulder the burden of preserving household survival under conditions of environmental change.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA central contribution of this study is that it clarifies how ecological loss becomes psychological distress when environmental change is experienced as the erosion of security, predictability, and future possibility. The findings on eco anxiety and depression strongly suggest that environmental degradation in coastal settings is lived not simply as material loss, but as emotional injury. This resonates with work showing that eco anxiety, ecological grief, and climate related depression are often rooted in anticipatory fear, repeated loss, and the collapse of place-based certainty (Cosh et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Charlson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). The findings from Salakope also extend Ghanaian research on sea level rise and coastal distress by showing that emotional suffering is tied not only to property damage or livelihood interruption, but also to the loss of ancestral land, identity, and continuity, which echoes the work of Hagan et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e), Abu et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e), and Cannings et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Feminist Political Ecology is especially useful here because it directs attention to the fact that environmental change is never experienced apart from relations of livelihood, belonging, and social reproduction (Rocheleau et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1996\u003c/span\u003e; Elmhirst, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping also sharpen this interpretation by suggesting that repeated exposure to sea encroachment is appraised not as a temporary inconvenience, but as an ongoing and escalating threat that overwhelms available coping resources (Lazarus \u0026amp; Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e; Lazarus, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1991\u003c/span\u003e). In this sense, eco anxiety in the study is not abstract fear about the planet. It is a deeply situated distress tied to the erosion of home, work, and life world.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe findings on caregiving burden and emotional exhaustion further show that climate related distress among women is inseparable from the gendered organization of daily survival. Water scarcity, food insecurity, and male migration intensified women\u0026rsquo;s responsibility for sustaining households, often leaving them to manage care, provisioning, and emotional stability with limited resources and little respite. This strongly aligns with literature showing that climate change magnifies the unpaid and underrecognized labor that women already perform in securing food, water, and social reproduction (Anjum \u0026amp; Aziz, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Zavala et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Ghanaian studies similarly show that women\u0026rsquo;s experiences of climate variability are shaped by unequal access to resources and by social expectations that position them as primary managers of household survival during periods of scarcity (Lawson et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Adzawla et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). The present findings deepen this scholarship by showing that the double burden of productive and reproductive labor is also a psychological burden. Women are not only doing more work. They are also carrying the emotional pressure of anticipation, planning, worry, and responsibility. Feminist Political Ecology helps interpret this by foregrounding the politics of social reproduction and the invisible labor through which women absorb environmental crisis in everyday life (Nightingale, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR48\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Sultana, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). The findings therefore support the view that climate vulnerability is not only about exposure to hazard. It is also about who is expected to absorb the strain of keeping life going when conditions deteriorate.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe findings on extreme heat add an important embodied dimension to the discussion. Heat in the study was not described as background weather or seasonal inconvenience. It emerged as a full bodily condition of discomfort, weakness, sleep disruption, and fear. This aligns with growing evidence that high ambient temperature affects not only physical health but also emotional and psychological wellbeing, particularly in low- and middle-income settings where women\u0026rsquo;s labor cannot easily be paused during heat events (K\u0026uuml;nzel et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; IPCC, 2022). The findings resonate with Brown et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e), who show that African women exposed to abnormal temperatures and weather extremes report higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. What the present study adds is a stronger account of heat as lived distress. Headaches, dizziness, racing heart, poor sleep, and bodily depletion were not separate from fear. They fed into it. The body became the medium through which climate change was felt as constant attack. The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping is especially useful here because it helps explain how persistent bodily strain shapes threat appraisal and emotional response (Lazarus \u0026amp; Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e). In this sense, heat becomes both physiological stressor and psychological signal, intensifying worry about land, health, and the future.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnother major finding was that climate stress can intensify domestic insecurity and violence. Household conflict, fear, verbal abuse, and physical aggression were linked to livelihood destruction, financial pressure, and displacement. This strongly supports literature showing that climate events can heighten the risk of gender-based violence by worsening stress, poverty, displacement, and service disruption (Van Daalen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). The significance of this finding lies in how it locates climate harm within intimate space. The home did not remain a refuge from environmental instability. In some cases, it became another site where climate stress was absorbed and displaced. This sharpens an important insight in feminist climate scholarship, namely that environmental crisis is lived through domestic relations as much as through fields, farms, or coastlines. Feminist Political Ecology helps interpret this by showing that power, vulnerability, and survival are negotiated within gendered household relations, not only between communities and the environment (Agarwal, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1997\u003c/span\u003e; Elmhirst, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). The findings therefore make clear that climate related mental distress cannot be adequately understood without attention to how environmental pressures reshape authority, frustration, and insecurity within the home.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe findings on displacement trauma extend this argument by showing that relocation is not only a technical adaptation issue, but also a profound psychosocial rupture. The loss of home, ancestral land, community ties, and cultural continuity emerged as a source of grief, disorientation, and lingering sadness. This is consistent with research from the Volta Delta showing that planned relocation can negatively affect anxiety and wellbeing even when it is intended to reduce exposure to risk (Abu et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). It also resonates with Cannings et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e), who link wellbeing in coastal Ghana to environmental conditions, hazard fears, and threatened livelihoods, and with Heath (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e), who argues that adaptation must be judged partly by its psychosocial consequences. A central insight here is that home is not merely a physical shelter. It is memory, belonging, kinship, and self location. The findings therefore suggest that climate related displacement should be understood as an emotional and cultural wound as much as a spatial shift. Feminist Political Ecology illuminates this because it insists that people\u0026rsquo;s relationships to land are shaped by history, livelihood, and identity, while the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping helps explain why displacement may be appraised as profound loss rather than neutral relocation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAt the same time, the study does not portray women only as overwhelmed subjects of harm. The findings on resilience show that coping is often relational, situated, and socially organized. Social support networks emerged as a foundational resource through which women shared emotional burdens, exchanged practical help, and sustained one another through crisis. This aligns closely with Abunyewah et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e), who found that social capital can moderate the mental health effects of drought in Ghana, and with Hagan et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e), who show that social support is central to coping with coastal climate distress. The present study adds further depth by showing that support operates through everyday reciprocity, not only through formal programs. Childcare, food sharing, savings groups, and emotional companionship functioned as forms of collective endurance. From the perspective of the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, these relationships expand available coping resources and reduce the isolating weight of threat appraisal (Lazarus \u0026amp; Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e; Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e). From the perspective of Feminist Political Ecology, they also reveal that adaptation is embedded in social relations and mutual obligation, not solely in technical intervention.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe findings on spirituality and prayer are especially important because they reveal a form of coping that is often underestimated in climate and mental health analysis. Faith did not simply provide symbolic comfort. It offered women a way to interpret suffering, regulate distress, and preserve a sense of hope in situations where many climate stressors remained beyond their direct control. This finding is consistent with Hagan et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e), who identified spirituality as a central coping mechanism in coastal Ghana. It also connects closely with later developments in the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, particularly Folkman\u0026rsquo;s argument that meaning focused coping becomes crucial in chronic and uncontrollable hardship (Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1997\u003c/span\u003e; Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e). In the present study, prayer functioned as an emotional practice of endurance, surrender, and inner stabilization. It helped interrupt despair by giving women a moral and spiritual language through which to carry burden. This is a significant contribution because it shows that mental health under climate change cannot be fully understood through secular or clinical categories alone. It must also be read through culturally embedded forms of meaning making.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe findings further show that women\u0026rsquo;s coping was not restricted to emotional survival. Many women engaged in practical adaptation strategies that restored agency and reduced helplessness. Livelihood diversification, savings, relocation planning, and collective problem solving all emerged as ways of creating room for action within uncertainty. This aligns with Ghanaian livelihoods research showing that households already respond to climatic stress through multiple coping and adaptation strategies, including on-farm and off-farm diversification (Aniah et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Boansi et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). The present study extends this work by highlighting the psychological significance of these strategies. Adaptation was not only about income. It also mattered because it gave women a sense of possibility, movement, and control. The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping helps explain this as a shift in appraisal, where threat becomes at least partially manageable through problem-focused action (Lazarus \u0026amp; Folkman, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e). Feminist Political Ecology likewise helps show that women are not merely victims of environmental change, but active agents navigating structural constraint through practical knowledge, social networks, and everyday innovation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe findings on grassroots initiatives strengthen this interpretation further by showing that resilience can become collective, organized, and political. Women\u0026rsquo;s groups involved in climate-resilient farming, preparedness, and community advocacy did more than transfer skills. They helped transform fear into knowledge, isolation into solidarity, and uncertainty into purposeful action. This resonates with research on women\u0026rsquo;s empowerment and irrigation in northern Ghana, which suggests that adaptation initiatives can improve agency and well-being even when structural constraints remain strong (Bryan \u0026amp; Garner, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Bryan \u0026amp; Mekonnen, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). A key contribution of the present study is that it demonstrates how grassroots organizing itself can be psychologically protective. Collective action created spaces in which women could reclaim competence, develop shared language around climate threats, and participate more actively in local adaptation processes. This is precisely the kind of agency-centred reading that Feminist Political Ecology makes possible. It reminds us that women\u0026rsquo;s relationship to climate change is shaped not only by suffering, but also by their capacity to produce knowledge, mobilize resources, and act together within unequal environments.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study set out to examine how climate change shapes stress, trauma, and resilience among women in Ghana, and the findings make one point unmistakably clear: climate change is not only altering land, livelihoods, and weather patterns, but also reshaping women\u0026rsquo;s emotional worlds. Across Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, women\u0026rsquo;s mental well-being was affected by environmental instability, livelihood insecurity, caregiving burdens, heat stress, domestic insecurity, and displacement-related loss. These pressures were not experienced as isolated events. Rather, they accumulated through everyday struggles to secure water, food, income, care, safety, and belonging under worsening ecological uncertainty. In this sense, the study shows that climate-related mental distress is socially produced and gendered, emerging through the interaction between environmental disruption and unequal expectations that women will absorb hardship and sustain household life.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe study also demonstrates that women\u0026rsquo;s experiences of climate change cannot be reduced to vulnerability alone. While the findings reveal significant forms of stress, fear, sadness, exhaustion, and trauma, they also show that women actively negotiate these pressures through social support, spirituality, livelihood adaptation, and collective organizing. Resilience in this study was not an abstract personal trait. It was relational, practical, and culturally grounded. It was built through family ties, mutual aid, prayer, savings groups, local knowledge, and women-led initiatives that transformed uncertainty into purposeful action. This challenges narrow understandings of both vulnerability and adaptation. Women are not merely recipients of climate harm, nor are they simply objects of policy intervention. They are active interpreters, negotiators, and agents of survival within deeply unequal conditions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOverall, this study contributes to climate change scholarship in Ghana by bringing mental health into debates that have often centered livelihoods, food systems, and adaptation planning while leaving emotional well-being in the background. It highlights the need for climate policy, adaptation programming, and community interventions to treat women\u0026rsquo;s mental health as a central dimension of climate vulnerability. Effective responses must therefore integrate psychosocial support, gender responsive adaptation, and community-based resilience mechanisms. Climate action must be judged not only by whether it protects assets and reduces exposure, but also by whether it protects dignity, emotional stability, and the social relations that sustain life. By centring women\u0026rsquo;s voices, this study shows that mental health is central to climate justice in Ghana and other vulnerable settings across Africa. It calls for future research that closely follows women across seasons and climate conditions over time.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics approval\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study was approved by the McGill University Research Ethics Board and was conducted in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations governing research involving human participants. Approval was granted under REB File Number: 24-09-061.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eClinical trial registration\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot applicable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent to participate\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInformed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent for publication\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParticipants were informed that anonymized data from the study could be used in academic publications. No identifying information is included in this manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting interests\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors declare no competing interests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo funding was received for this study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData availability\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to the sensitive nature of the qualitative data and the need to protect participant confidentiality. However, de-identified data may be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting interests\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe author declares no competing interests.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAbu M, Heath SC, Adger WN, Codjoe SNA, Butler C, Quinn T. Social consequences of planned relocation in response to sea level rise: Impacts on anxiety, well-being, and perceived safety. Sci Rep. 2024;14(1):3461. \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-53277-9\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"10.1038/s41598-024-53277-9\" targettype=\"DOI\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAbunyewah M, Okyere SA, Opoku Mensah S, Erdiaw-Kwasie M, Gajendran T, Byrne MK. 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Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2024;21(8):1093. \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21081093\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"10.3390/ijerph21081093\" targettype=\"DOI\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"discover-social-science-and-health","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"diss","sideBox":"Learn more about [Discover Social Science and Health](https://www.springer.com/journal/44155)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Discover Social Science and Health","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Discover Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Climate change, mental health, women, stress, resilience, Ghana","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9149543/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9149543/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eClimate change is increasingly reshaping everyday life in Ghana through coastal erosion, flooding, erratic rainfall, water scarcity, heat, and agricultural insecurity. While these changes have been widely examined in relation to livelihoods and adaptation, much less attention has been given to their mental health consequences, especially among women whose daily responsibilities for care, food provision, and household survival often intensify under environmental stress. This study examined how climate change influences stress, trauma, and resilience among women in Salakope and Choggu Yapalsi, two climate vulnerable communities representing coastal and northern ecological settings in Ghana. Guided by Feminist Political Ecology and the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, the study adopted a qualitative multiple case study design. Data were generated through in depth semi structured interviews with sixteen (n=16) women and analyzed using Thematic Network Analysis. The findings showed that climate change affects women’s mental wellbeing through layered pathways that include ecological loss, livelihood disruption, caregiving overload, heat related bodily strain, domestic insecurity, and displacement trauma. Women described eco anxiety, sadness, fear, exhaustion, and emotional instability as recurring features of life under worsening climate conditions. At the same time, the study found that women were not passive recipients of harm. They drew on social support, spirituality, livelihood diversification, savings groups, and grassroots collective action to cope with distress and restore agency and hope. The study concludes that climate vulnerability in Ghana must be understood not only as material exposure to environmental risk but also as a mental and emotional condition shaped by gendered labor, unequal social relations, and culturally grounded forms of resilience.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Mental Health Impacts of Climate Change and Resilience Among Women in Coastal and Northern Ghana","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-04-17 17:28:10","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9149543/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-05-19T09:56:01+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-05-05T16:14:34+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"277819973479279003970793840313195251582","date":"2026-05-05T15:23:11+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"237219077183728678312546532457574056315","date":"2026-04-24T11:03:50+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"33635113248294744879365054363499609836","date":"2026-04-24T06:10:47+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2026-04-10T05:10:23+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvited","content":"","date":"2026-03-25T14:57:43+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2026-03-24T13:37:32+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2026-03-23T18:00:49+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Discover Social Science and Health","date":"2026-03-23T17:52:08+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"discover-social-science-and-health","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"diss","sideBox":"Learn more about [Discover Social Science and Health](https://www.springer.com/journal/44155)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Discover Social Science and Health","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Discover Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"ec181333-119d-4248-8d31-d755e8718dd0","owner":[],"postedDate":"April 17th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-05-19T09:56:01+00:00","index":64,"fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-05-05T16:14:34+00:00","index":60,"fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"277819973479279003970793840313195251582","date":"2026-05-05T15:23:11+00:00","index":59,"fulltext":""}],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-04-17T17:28:11+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-04-17 17:28:10","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-9149543","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-9149543","identity":"rs-9149543","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}