Canadian adolescents’ perceptions of how climate change is impacting their mental health: A qualitative analysis of open-ended survey responses

There is increasing recognition that climate change affects mental health, with young people identified as a high-risk population. Yet, research on this topic has mostly focused on quantitative studies with limited research exploring youth’s perspectives. This study explored Canadian adolescents’ perceptions of the impacts of climate change on their mental health. Data were collected from a cross-sectional survey of 804 Canadian adolescents (13–18 years). This study utilized open-ended response data from participants who reported that their mental health was impacted by climate change and who were then asked to describe how. An inductive thematic analysis with semantic coding was undertaken to analyze the data. Thirty-seven percent of participants reported that they felt climate change was impacting their mental health either a little or a lot, and 235 participants answered the open-ended question about how. In the open-ended responses, four themes emerged: i) Emotional and psychological responses, ii) Concerns for the future, iii) Impacts on functioning, and iv) Concerns for the environment, humanity, and wildlife. This study highlights that adolescents’ perspectives of the impacts of climate change on their mental health were diverse, highlighting multiple pathways linking climate change to mental health among this demographic. These insights can inform strategies to mitigate the climate-related mental health impacts among youth.