Climate change is intensifying displacement, disrupting livelihoods, social networks, healthcare access, and community identity. For forcibly displaced, climate-affected, and stateless populations, these disruptions create heightened risks of anxiety, depression, trauma, social isolation, and other psychosocial challenges. Yet mental health needs remain poorly captured within humanitarian and national health information systems. Without reliable, disaggregated data, governments, humanitarian agencies, and development partners cannot accurately assess needs, allocate resources, monitor outcomes, or design sustainable interventions. Strengthening psychosocial and mental health information systems is therefore essential to transforming invisible suffering among stateless persons, into actionable evidence.
THE DATA GAP BEHIND A VISIBLE CRISIS
By the end of 2024, an estimated 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced, including 73.5 million internally displaced people, and low- and middle-income countries hosted 71% of the world's refugees (WHO, 2025). Africa carries a disproportionate share: Sudan alone recorded over 11 million IDPs, the highest single-country figure ever logged by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, while disaster-driven displacement globally rose to 9.8 million people in 2024, a 29% increase on the previous year (IDMC, 2025). Stateless populations - Rohingya-style statelessness has African parallels in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, sit outside even these counts, since most national health information systems have no registration category for them.
What is missing is not evidence of distress but the infrastructure to record it. A 2018 meta-analysis pooling 39,518 displaced adults across 21 countries found post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) prevalence ranging from 3% to 88% and depression from 5% to 80%, a spread the authors attributed less to true variation than to inconsistent measurement and the near-absence of routine surveillance (Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2018). In our own field engagements across IDP camps in the Lake Chad Basin, health workers routinely describe presentations of insomnia, somatic complaint, and withdrawal among displaced women and children - yet the clinic register has no Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) field; the encounter is coded as "headache" or "fatigue" and the psychosocial dimension disappears from the record entirely.
BUILDING THE SYSTEM, NOT JUST THE SERVICE
Health systems strengthening requires that psychosocial indicators be embedded in existing HMIS/DHIS2 architecture, not run as parallel, donor-funded pilots that close with the project. This means: standardized MHPSS screening tools adapted to displacement and statelessness contexts; interoperability between camp-level registers, national HMIS, and UNHCR's database; and trained community health workers empowered to code psychosocial distress as a legitimate clinical category. Nigeria's Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) rollout demonstrates feasibility but not yet integration with displacement tracking - a gap Afrihealth Optonet Association (AHOA's) climate-health advocacy continues to press within ECOSOC and UNEA fora. Sustainable investment here is not humanitarian overhead; it is the foundation for evidence-based, long-term mental health financing in fragile settings.
CONCLUSION
Climate displacement and statelessness demand a fundamental shift from treating mental health as an optional humanitarian service to recognizing it as an essential component of resilient health and protection systems. Reliable psychosocial data can illuminate patterns of distress, identify vulnerable groups, guide targeted interventions, strengthen financing, and ensure continuity of care across displacement and recovery settings. Integrating MHPSS indicators into HMIS/DHIS2 and displacement information platforms, while protecting privacy and preventing stigma, can create the evidence base required for accountable policy and programming. For Africa, this is particularly urgent as climate pressures, conflict, disasters, and protracted displacement increasingly intersect. AHOA and its partners should champion interoperable, community-informed, rights-based information systems that ensure no displaced or stateless person becomes statistically invisible. Importantly, every documented need should inform a meaningful response.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
World Health Organization. (2025, September 1). Refugee and migrant mental health [Fact sheet]. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/refugee-and-migrant-men...
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. (2026). Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026 (GRID 2026). Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre/Norwegian Refugee Council. https://www.internal-displacement.org/publications/2026-global-report-on...
Sisenop, F., Chatarajupalli, P., Bain, P. A., Kaade, H., & Lindert, J. (2025). Human rights violations are associated with forcibly displaced population’s mental health—A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Public Health, 12, 1454331. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1454331
Morina, N., Akhtar, A., Barth, J., & Schnyder, U. (2018). Psychiatric disorders in refugees and internally displaced persons after forced displacement: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9, 433. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00433
UNHCR. (2025). Global trends: Forced displacement in 2024. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. https://www.unhcr.org/global-report-2024
“Technological tools, including computers, search engines, statistical software, AI, and other digital applications routinely employed in contemporary scholarship, assisted in the preparation of this work. However, the conceptualization, analysis, interpretation, verification of information, conclusions, and responsibility for the content remain solely those of the author.” - Dr. Uzodinma Adirieje; CEO/Programmes Director, Afrihealth Optonet Association (AHOA), and President, African Refugees Council (ARC).
HIFA profile: Dr. Uzodinma Adirieje is a leading voice in health education, community health, and advocacy, with decades of experience advancing people-centered development across Africa and beyond. His approach to health education emphasizes participatory learning, knowledge transfer, and behavior change communication, ensuring that individuals and communities gain the skills and awareness to make informed decisions about their health. He develops and delivers innovative health promotion strategies tailored to local realities, particularly in resource-limited settings. In community health, Dr. Adirieje has championed integrated primary health care, preventive medicine, and grassroots health initiatives. Through Afrihealth Optonet Association (AHOA), which he leads, he connects civil society, community groups, and health institutions to strengthen healthcare delivery, tackle health inequities, and improve access to essential services for vulnerable populations. His work addresses infectious diseases, maternal and child health, nutrition, climate and health, environmental health, and emerging public health challenges. As a passionate advocate, Dr. Adirieje works with governments, NGOs, and international organizations to influence health policy, mobilize resources, and promote sustainable development goals (SDGs). He amplifies community voices, ensuring that health systems are inclusive, accountable, and responsive. His advocacy extends beyond health to governance, environment, and social justice, positioning him as a multidisciplinary leader shaping healthier and more equitable societies. afrepton AT gmail.com