Professor Holly Thorpe: Waikato University expert on the studies into weather-based anxiety

New research shows anxiety is spiking during downpours, as more weather disasters threaten people's property and safety.

A new survey shows 73 percent of respondents in the Hawke’s Bay region feel anxious about the weather and 57 percent of respondents nationwide are concerned.

Professor Holly Thorpe from the University of Waikato says people in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne, who were hit hard by Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023, reported impacts on their mental health as a result of adverse weather conditions.

"The rain anxiety, the stress, the worry, the new kinds of experiences of vulnerability, were affecting people across the community."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now there is a thing called rain anxiety and it's
on the rise in New Zealand. It's the fear that
every downpour could bring flooding or a landslipe that threatens
you home. And iig survey, iag aig, oh Lord, IAG
get it right. Found seventy three percent of people in
the Hawks Bay feel anxious about the weather. Fifty seven
percent of us feel like this nationwide. And Professor Holly
Thorpe is the Associate Dean of Health at the University

(00:22):
of whitkuckle Whitecatle who's been looking into this.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
High Holly, good evening.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I've got my letters all around today. I don't know
what's going wrong. Now listen why people feel like this?
Have they got trauma from past experiences or something.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
That's what we've found in our research and the Hawks
Bay and tight Arthite, Gisborne. We did this big study
after cyclone Gabrielle and repeated weather events in Gisborne, and
we found that people who had experienced these very traumatic
rain events and sometimes multiple events in a row, Yeah,
they were really what's impacting their mental health the rain anxiety,

(00:57):
the stress, the worry, the new kind of experiences of
vulnerability were affecting people across the community.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
And is this if they had like are they still
in the same place that had been flooded, had they
moved house, or you know, had they changed their circumstances.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, it's really interesting, it wasn't. We have a whole
spectrum of experiences here, and everyone that we spoke to,
the one hundred and forty three people that we spoke
to across the regions were experiencing ragin anxiety. Obviously, those
people who had had their houses demolished had been involved
in the recovery efforts, very stressful, very traumatic, you know,

(01:33):
forms of PTSD going on, and their experiences were very
long lasting months and months afterwards and sometimes years. But
even people who didn't wasn't directly impacting their homes, people
who were cut off from roads, who'd had the kind
of the job, and securities just you know, worries about

(01:54):
their home and the future. So everyone across the community
was experienced these effects across a whole spectrum though.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
And it affects the kids then as well, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
It affects the kids absolutely. So we heard from parents
who their kids jump in the bed at night when
it starts raining heavily because they've had these experiences. They've
seen their grandparents's homes destroyed, or they've had their own evacuations,
or they've seen the stress and the home that it brings.
When the powers cut out, when the tallycommunications are cut out,
when the roads are cut off for weeks, it's absolutely

(02:29):
impacting across our communities and our kids too. It's good
to know.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Hey, thank you, Holly really appreciated Professor Hollythorp, who's the
Associate Dean of Health at the University of white Cutthord.
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