Climate adaptation policies in Central Asia overlook mental health

As climate change intensifies, Central Asian countries face growing public health risks, including underrecognized impacts on mental health. Climate-related stressors such as heatwaves, displacement, and food insecurity are linked to heightened risks of anxiety, depression, and trauma. Yet, the mental health dimensions of climate adaptation remain largely absent from regional policy. This study analyzes adaptation policies of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan through document scoring, keyword frequency analysis, and semantic network mapping. The results reveal three key patterns: (1) mental health is almost entirely excluded from climate adaptation policy; (2) institutional and financial readiness is uneven; and (3) psychosocial stressors are inconsistently acknowledged. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are the only countries to reference mental health directly, and only Kazakhstan demonstrates partial integration, notably through its use of gendered vulnerability framing. Kyrgyzstan, while not referencing mental health explicitly, demonstrates the strongest policy coherence in general health and institutional structures, with an interconnected network linking climate, health care, and vulnerability. Uzbekistan shows the weakest integration of general health and institutional structures, and mental health is entirely absent, though localized planning has begun in the Aral Sea region. Across all four countries, mental health is either only symbolically acknowledged or entirely overlooked, highlighting a critical blind spot in regional adaptation policy. This study calls for explicit inclusion of mental health in national adaptation plans, supported by interministerial coordination, gender-sensitive design, and targeted financing to ensure climate-resilient health systems in Central Asia.