C4.01 - Deep Dive: How to Foster Optimism Amid Fear: Addressing Youth Climate Anxiety Through Communication and Advocacy

Brief Abstract Summary: Learn about ways climate change is impacting the mental health of adolescents and young adults. Examine data from ethnically diverse older adolescents showing frustration and anger, but also determination and optimism, to confront climate change. Observe how young climate activists find connection and motivation, along with sadness and stress, in their activism. Discover how communication frames induce negative or positive emotions about climate change that lead to action, denial, or rejection based on youth agency and collective efficacy. Gain insights into training the health education workforce to address climate change by facilitating youth leadership, partnerships, and policy advocacy that uplift diverse youth voices and communities. Learn new health education activities for youth to enhance awareness and foster optimism to take action to mitigate the climate crisis through education on policy and legislative structures, and activities to build skills and abilities for advocacy.

Detailed abstract description: Climate change is severely impacting the mental health and well-being of young people. Climate anxiety - heightened levels of stress, fear, and worry about environmental deterioration, and believing the future offers fewer opportunities because of climate change – is high and may be increasing among adolescents locally and globally.

Health education professionals are uniquely positioned to help adolescents channel fear and worry about climate change into positive action, given their expertise in motivational communication, skills facilitating dialogue and partnerships, and frequent work in youth-focused settings. Social justice principles that are foundational to the health education profession necessitate increased awareness and interventional strategies to address the growing mental health crisis, in part caused by climate change, that is especially acute among lower-income, minority, and gender-diverse youth, who suffer the most from climate change.

We surveyed 521 first- and second-year college students in northern California (average age =19; 78% minority) about their feelings toward climate change, engagement in climate activism, and well-being. Most felt nervous (84%), frustrated (82%), and afraid (81%), but many also felt determined (71%) and motivated (70%) to confront climate change. Lower-income, female, and nonbinary students reported higher climate anxiety than peers. General linear models revealed that students with stronger emotions about climate change and greater climate anxiety were more environmentally engaged and more confident in their actions, and optimistic youth felt more empowered to confront climate change.

Most research and media coverage on the climate crisis is negative, and fear-inducing language is common in communications. However, normalizing the range of emotions and supporting positive feelings when confronting climate change may increase youth resilience, drive, and optimism. Additionally, moving beyond the “Greta Thunberg effect” is essential for inspiring more diverse youth voices so that young people from all backgrounds and with diverse vulnerabilities and citizenship see themselves as leaders and change makers who collectively will improve planetary health. Creative health education activities that inspire awareness, connection, optimism, and action will contribute to better mental health for young people.

In this session, we will briefly (1) give an overview of how global youth mental health is being impacted by climate change and (2) share data on climate anxiety, activism, and well-being among older adolescents in California, and (3) conduct a deep dive on strategies that health education professionals can implement to empower youth to address climate change through communication and advocacy, providing examples of how diverse youth voices have become more central in tackling the climate crisis such as Juliana v. United States and the Good Trouble Climate Network in Colorado.