Joshua R Wortzel, MD, MPhil, MS
Cards
About
Titles
Assistant Professor Adjunct in Psychiatry
Biography
Dr. Josh Wortzel just completed his child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Brown University and has joined the psychiatry faculty at the Institute of Living and the Yale Department of Psychiatry. Clinically, he works with young adults in an intensive outpatient program, and 50% of his time is dedicated to research and advocacy. He is the chair of the American Psychiatric Associations’s Committee on Climate Change and Mental Health and is co-chair of the new American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's Committee on Climate Change. He is a fellow of the Climate and Mental Health Committee of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry think tank and sits on the steering committee for the national non-profit Climate Psychiatry Alliance. He has presented on the topic of climate change and mental health to national audiences at the APA and AACAP and at grand rounds across the country, as well as on local and national news and radio and to the US Congress.
Appointments
Education & Training
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship
- Brown University (2024)
- MS
- University of Rochester, Health Professions Education (2022)
- General Psychiatry Residency
- University of Rochester (2022)
- MD
- Stanford University, School of Medicine (2018)
- MPhil
- Cambridge University, Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (2014)
- AB
- Harvard College, Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology (2013)
Research
The WHO considers climate change the number one public health threat of this century. Atmospheric heat during heat waves and seasonally is associated with higher suicide rates and psychiatric hospitalizations. My research focuses on studying mechanisms by which temperature may be impacting mental health.
Overview
The WHO considers climate change the number one public health threat of this century. Atmospheric heat during heat waves and seasonally is associated with higher suicide rates and psychiatric hospitalizations. Youth have trouble thermoregulating during heat stress relative to adults, and depressed patients have baseline thermodysregulation, making depressed youth especially vulnerable. While ambient temperature and suicidality appear linked, the etiology is unclear. Dr. Wortzel's research focuses on studying mechanisms by which temperature may be impacting mental health. His prior research has focused on epidemiological association studies of temperature and suicide and other mental health outcomes. He is currently developing research to prospectively measure the association of experienced ambient temperature using wearable devices with fluctuations in mood as measured my ecological momentary assessment. His plan is to explore etiological underpinnings of this association, including temperature's impact on sleep-wake disturbances and physical activity. Future areas of investigation will including looking at the impact of temperature on neurotransmitter levels and neuronal functional connectivity. In addition to research on temperature and affect, he studies the carbon footprint of psychiatric practice and strategies to reduce it and the impact that distress about climate change has on the mental health of young people. The latter uses a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. He also has a background in medical education and am involved with building educational content for psychiatry training and testing the effectiveness of these materials.