The Story
“The Emotional Weight of Water Stress”
https://www.brainfacts.org/thinking-sensing-and-behaving/emotions-stress-and-anxiety/2022/the-emotional-weight-of-water-stress-061322
by Robin Tricoles
BrainFacts, June 13, 2022
The Pitch
I’m proposing an 800-word article on how water insecurity affects people’s mental health, with a focus on the United States. The narrative arc looks like this: an anecdotal lede; the nut: that water insecurity manifests as poor mental health; and that there’s a new way (a holistic way) to measure water insecurity, which includes water availability, accessibility, use, and stability; which may be cause for hope in helping to solve this problem. It should be noted that there is enough water in this world to accommodate all.
The story matters because water insecurity affects people around the world, including the United States. But researchers are now looking at water insecurity holistically, something not done before. Climate change makes this story especially timely.
I’ll be referencing a 2020 British Medical Journal article on mental health in water scarce cities; a 2020 WIRES Water article on water and mental health; and a 2020 WIRES Water article on coping mechanisms for dealing with water insecurity. The WIRES articles are published by Wiley and both are peer reviewed.
I’ll be speaking with anthropologist Sera Young at Northwestern University and anthropologist Alexandra Brewis at Arizona State University. I’m also hoping to speak with human biologist Asher Rosinger at Penn State.
Your audience would likely be interested and surprised that so many people in the United States experience water insecurity, some who live very near major metropolitan cities like Phoenix. Likewise, I think your readers would be genuinely interested in the mental-health toll that water insecurity exacts–and that the toll is invisible.