Two new studies look at youth concerns about climate change and its impacts, including mental health, and at the impacts on youth mental health of exposure to climate-related disasters and mental distress.

One study examines young people’s emotions, thoughts and plans related to climate change. A team of researchers, led by R. Eric Lewandowski, Ph.D., with New York University, surveyed more than 15,000 youth and young adults aged 16 to 25 across the U.S.

The survey found:

• 85% are at least moderately worried about climate change and its impacts on people and the planet.
• 60% are very or extremely worried about climate change and its impacts on people and the planet.
• 43% said climate change is impacting their mental health.
• 38% said their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily lives.

Those who had experienced exposure to more types of severe weather events were significantly more likely to report climate-related distress and desire and plans for action.

Talking about climate change concerns

The study also found that youth and young adults want to talk about climate-related distress, and they want action. Actions include making sustainable choices with their lifestyle and career and desiring broader action from governments and the private sector.

Teens and young adults expressed a desire to talk about their feelings and concerns related to climate issues:

• 66% wanted their parents’ or grandparents’ generations to try to understand their feelings.
• 70% wanted others to talk about climate-related feelings.

However, 57% either felt, or worried about being dismissed or ignored when they talk about climate change. Lewandowski and colleagues suggest ways to provide support for climate-related distress among teens and young adults. For example, providing opportunities to talk about climate-related emotions, with a focus on community, peer, family, and school settings, rather than primarily in clinical settings. “Most fundamentally, simply providing opportunities for young people to communicate their distress about climate change may be beneficial,” the authors conclude.

Impact of disaster exposure over time

Another recent study examined the association between exposure to climate disasters, including timing, frequency, and duration, and adolescents’ mental distress. The study analyzed data on more than 36,000 high school students in 22 urban areas in 14 states (from the U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Survey) in relation to data on climate-related severe weather events in the previous two, five and 10 years from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. Disaster data included severe storms, hurricanes, floods, coastal storms, tornadoes, severe ice storms, freezing, snowstorms, droughts, and wildfires.

The students were more likely to experience mental distress with more recent and longer exposure to disasters. The strongest effects on mental distress were in the two years immediately following a climate disaster and the effect gradually weakened five to 10 years after the disaster. Teens experiencing the highest number of disaster days (top quartile vs. less) within the past two years were 25% more likely to experience mental distress. They were 20% more likely to experience mental distress when the disaster exposure was within the past 5 years. (There was no statistical association when the exposure period was 10 years.)

While the study did not specifically look at how the disasters impact mental well-being, the authors suggest possible ways, including

• Disruption of school, and social and physical support services.
• Challenges with material circumstances.
• Adult mental health difficulties transferring to teens.
• Teens’ recognition that climate-related events are likely to become more severe and more frequent and could affect their future.

“As uncertainty grows in adolescents’ future, a sense of hopelessness and anxiety can occur,” the authors note. As the number, duration and impact of extreme weather events increases, the potential for mental health impacts among youth and young adults, and others, is also increasing.

More information

• Climate Change Resource Center. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
• Climate Solutions Hub – Yale Climate Connections.