Unseen Mental Health Effects of Climate Anxiety on Adolescents

A recent study led by Stanford University highlights a growing psychological crisis linked to climate change, particularly affecting young girls. Published in The Lancet Planetary Health on July 30, 2025, the research is among the first to quantify how repeated exposure to climate-related stressors influences the mental well-being and future outlook of teenagers in resource-limited settings.

Researchers from Stanford’s Schools of Medicine, Law, and Sustainability collaborated with health experts in Bangladesh to survey over 1,000 adolescents and conduct focus groups across flood-prone and safer regions. The findings reveal that teens living in flood-affected areas like Barisal are nearly twice as likely to display anxiety symptoms and over three times more likely to suffer from depression compared to peers in less vulnerable areas like Dhaka. Notably, girls exhibited nearly double the rates of anxiety, mainly driven by fears of household stress and domestic violence following natural disasters.

Lead author Liza Goldberg emphasized that these fears around climate change significantly impact daily mental health. She expressed surprise at the high levels of climate distress, highlighting how environmental changes undermine young people's sense of purpose and hope. The qualitative data from adolescents describe how frequent flooding diminishes aspirations for higher education and stable careers, fostering feelings of fatalism, family conflict, early marriage, and emotional distress.

The study also links anxiety symptoms to "temporal discounting," where families prioritize short-term safety over long-term resilience investments, such as relocating or using flood-resistant construction. This tendency hinders efforts to adapt and build resilience in vulnerable communities.

According to study co-author Farjana Jahan, this research sheds light on a silent mental health crisis among climate-vulnerable adolescents, emphasizing the need for community-based mental health programs tailored to youth. It also points to gender-sensitive interventions aimed at protecting girls' education and economic opportunities during and after climate events.

Professor Gabrielle Wong-Parodi from Stanford stresses that the mental toll of climate change hampers community resilience, as despair and cognitive overload reduce adaptive capacity. Addressing both mental health and climate adaptation strategies is critical for safeguarding vulnerable populations.

This study underscores that the human costs of climate change extend beyond physical destruction to include profound psychological impacts, especially on adolescents living in the world’s most affected regions.