And it’s not always negatively….
In the second instalment this year of Annotations from the Academy’s Guidelines and Evidence-based Medicine Subcommittee, Mary Burke, MD, reviews results from a survey of more than 2,500 participants, aged 24-36, from industrialised countries, assessing their emotional responses to global crises.
The survey, completed between October 20 and November 3, 2023, gauged responses to wars, climate change, and radioactive water (an issue attracting relatively high emotional response from Chinese younger people).
Country-specific models elucidated associations between emotional engagement and psychological distress and well-being. Notably, while greater emotional engagement in ecological crises (climate change and radioactive water) generally predicted worsening psychological health outcomes, US respondents were relatively disengaged from war crises—and wars had positive outcomes for mental health in the standalone China model.
Researchers found that media exposure mediated the generally negative effect of wars on psychological distress in the multi-country model, and positive psychological well-being in the China model.
Nature connectedness also emerged as a potent mediator, effectively mitigating adverse mental health effects of emotional engagement with some crises, such as radioactive water and climate change.
US respondents were the least engaged in the crises, expressing high levels of helplessness, and were least connected to nature.
“ ‘Climate anxiety’ (whether we use that term or ‘realistic anxiety about the future’), is affecting the generations coming of age,” says the reviewer. “Other serious global crises, including environmental degradation and escalating conflicts, will have long-lasting impacts on the lives of Millennials and Gen-Z.
“Most experts agree that this is not simply a ‘therapy problem,’ but one that requires engagement in action that mitigates the issues.
“Engagement with nature, and nature restoration, has been shown to improve mood and outlook in other studies and, of course, can protect specific habitats for human and other species. All mental health clinicians should be aware of these contributions to presentations, and think beyond medications when addressing symptoms.”
Annotations is on the ACLP website here.