Climate change-related worry, engagement, and mental health

Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)

DOI: 10.13056/acamh.19805
In this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Emma Sciberras, Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, and Dr. Julian Fernando, a lecturer in the same department.
The focus of this podcast is on their co-authored paper, ‘Climate change-related worry among Australian adolescents: an eight-year longitudinal study’ (doi: 10.1111/camh.12521) , published in the CAMH 2022 Special Issue on ‘Child and youth mental health & the global ecological crisis’.
Emma and Julian begin by providing an overview of their paper, detailing the methodology used, and sharing some of the key findings.
Whilst the paper determined that both the high persistent and increasing worry group reported greater engagement with news and politics, only those in the persistent worry group had higher depression symptoms. Emma and Julian provide insight into how they differentiated between high persistent and increasing worry, and discuss whether those with increasing worry are on a trajectory to become persistently worried.
Emma and Julian also discuss how the relationship between engaging with the news and politics and levels of worry and depression feed into one another and explore whether greater societal engagement is a healthy way of managing eco anxiety.
Following their finding that worrying about climate change may be associated with poorer mental health, but also greater political engagement, Emma and Julian share their advice for young people and their parents, comment on the implications of their findings for professionals working with young people and their families, plus reflect on what message policy makers should take from their findings.