Friday, April 4, 2025
4/4/2025
Youth climate activism on social media: Building psychosocial resilienceamong minority youth - Project Summary/Abstract Climate change is a global crisis and an issue of intergenerational injustice, placing disproportionate and unjust harm on young people and future generations. Consequentially, young people are experiencing significant climate-related psychological distress. Climate change also exacerbates existing inequalities, resulting in worse mental health burden on youth who face greater social and environmental vulnerabilities (e.g., socioeconomically disadvantaged youth, Black, Indigenous, Youth of color [BIYOC]). Young people are increasingly engaging with climate change issues through social media. Unfortunately, social media can have emotional consequences, exposing youth to a higher volume of information about the climate crisis without strategies for managing distress. Moreover, recent increases in racial discrimination via social media place BIYOC at greater risk for mental health difficulties when engaging with climate activism in online spaces. The current study will explore how minority youth experiences with climate activism via social media confer youth risk and resilience for psychopathology and impact equity-focused climate action to inform prevention efforts that reduce climate-related mental health consequences and race-based health disparities. In Aim 1, will use social network analysis and content analysis to elucidate network properties and content of influential climate activism social media accounts to inform strategies that may enhance the reach and uptake of messages centering climate-racial justice advocacy and minority mental health promotion. Aim 2 will draw on youth participatory action methods using ethnographic tools to explore minority youth perceptions of how engaging with climate activism on social media impacts mental health and behaviors. In Aim 3, we will retain a subset of youth from Aim 2 and recruit adult environmental health specialists to co-design a minority-focused climate resilience social media campaign, informed by theory and findings from Aims 1 and 2 on resilience building, minority-focused climate communication strategies. We will collect pilot data regarding minority youth perceptions of campaign feasibility and acceptability, as well as youth and adult perceptions of the partnership process. Successful completion of these aims will contribute to the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative Strategic Framework to understand the effects of climate change-induced stress on youth development and NIMHD Priority Research Areas to reduce the effects of climate change among populations who experience health disparities looking at multiple domains (i.e., behavioral, sociocultural) and multiple levels (i.e., individual, interpersonal) of influence.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).