Measuring Climate Anxiety
29/05/22 14:36
Social media could be a gauge to measure climate anxiety during weather events and observe how well individuals cope with climate change.
It also may have the potential to be a tool for warning when people are in climate-related distress.
A team of researchers at Simon Fraser University is undertaking a year-long study into whether social media can reliably measure climate change anxiety and provide warnings to health providers.
SFU professor Kiffer Card says climate change is not an issue for the distant future; climate change is happening now.
Unfortunately, despite our awareness of this, policymakers seem reluctant to take meaningful steps to reduce the causes of global warming and prepare health services and communities for its impacts.
Professors Card, Robert Hogg, Maya Gislason, Hasina Samji, and Athabasca University professor Gina Martin are exploring how social media can help understand how people react to climate change in real-time.
Card says climate change will influence how people live their lives and be a factor in where they live, whether they start a family and their career choices.
He warns that these profound decisions have society-changing effects.
When it comes to measuring the level of climate anxiety, Card says traditional surveys can be imperfect tools.
“One of the biggest limitations of surveys is you only get responses of people who are willing to take them, and some people who might be too distressed may not take the time to complete a survey.”
Another problem is the need to sample on an ongoing basis, which can burden people.
“The idea was to see if we could calibrate social media to kind of create a tool that leverages social media to match that survey data that we were generating.”
They want to look for characteristics of the social media ecosystem that correlate with the distress they see in studies.
“The volume of tweets, so how many tweets per day, or week, are we seeing, how many people are tweeting, so both the number of users, you can imagine there's a core group of people who are frequently tweeting about climate change, and then there are people who may engage only in periods of high distress, there's also the frequency at which individuals, who are tweeting about climate change, the frequency at which they are tweeting.”
If they are successful, Card says they would like to develop a tool “to alert healthcare providers, counsellors, people with patients who are vulnerable to climate anxiety or maybe particularly distressed by increases in climate discussions.”
He says it could help improve health care by letting health providers know that it is time to reach out for preventive and preemptive care.
They will also be talking to people about how to characterize climate anxiety observed in the survey through focus groups and cognitive interviewing of people in the community to understand how they use social media and analyze the trends.
They also want to understand how news coverage and climate events overlay some of those trends.
He says they have observed that people who are more vulnerable to distress, in general, are also vulnerable to climate-related anxiety.
Card and the team of demographers, eco-social epidemiologists, environmental researchers, and climate activists launched the Mental Health and Climate Change Alliance.
They piloted a Climate Distress Monitoring System, which used web-based surveys with self-reporting measures to monitor levels of climate-related concerns.
The CDMS pilot collected data during an unprecedented heat dome that settled over British Columbia in June of 2021.
They found climate anxiety rose significantly following the heatwave and then wildfires that burned thousands of hectares of forest.
Card says social media may provide an opportunity to study social level interactions and learn more about what Canadians discuss with each other about climate change and climate anxiety.
They plan to use social media and web-based data to create an automated system for measuring climate-related ecological distress continuously and unobtrusively.
Automated monitoring of climate concerns and distress will allow the MHCCA to study individuals and communities across the entire province over time, resulting in a larger body of evidence.
Card hopes that the data collected could be used to advocate for local and national action on climate change and respond to its human impacts.
"Digital epidemiology is the next frontier of epidemiological research," says Card, "it has tremendous potential to give us a new way to understand the evolving relationship between individuals and their environment while also reducing the burden on research participants.”
Card warns that climate change is impacting people now, and a better response is needed, particularly in light of government inability or unwillingness to enact effective climate control policies.
He says there is a need to "invest in the human capital and human infrastructure of society."
According to Card, more than simply adding insulation for buildings or more efficient AC systems is required, "we need mental health supports, we need community supports, we need to build strong communities that will be resilient to the effects of climate change.”
He says the investment is needed now in human services and our communities.
Professor Card says some harm from climate change will be unavoidable, and we are starting to see them today.
He says climate anxiety differs from climate worry: “when people cross over from worry to anxiety, it is usually indicated by a rise distress that impairs their ability to function in their daily lives.”
He says climate anxiety is a concerning medical condition increasingly affecting people in Canada, particularly young people.
Card says they will decide whether to have families, where to live, and what jobs to pursue based on climate change.
He says we need to a forward-thinking, "not only doing the research, but also acting on what we already know, and I think we already know from our baseline work, and from the broader climate science, that now is the time to start enacting these programs.”
It also may have the potential to be a tool for warning when people are in climate-related distress.
A team of researchers at Simon Fraser University is undertaking a year-long study into whether social media can reliably measure climate change anxiety and provide warnings to health providers.
SFU professor Kiffer Card says climate change is not an issue for the distant future; climate change is happening now.
Unfortunately, despite our awareness of this, policymakers seem reluctant to take meaningful steps to reduce the causes of global warming and prepare health services and communities for its impacts.
Professors Card, Robert Hogg, Maya Gislason, Hasina Samji, and Athabasca University professor Gina Martin are exploring how social media can help understand how people react to climate change in real-time.
Card says climate change will influence how people live their lives and be a factor in where they live, whether they start a family and their career choices.
He warns that these profound decisions have society-changing effects.
When it comes to measuring the level of climate anxiety, Card says traditional surveys can be imperfect tools.
“One of the biggest limitations of surveys is you only get responses of people who are willing to take them, and some people who might be too distressed may not take the time to complete a survey.”
Another problem is the need to sample on an ongoing basis, which can burden people.
“The idea was to see if we could calibrate social media to kind of create a tool that leverages social media to match that survey data that we were generating.”
They want to look for characteristics of the social media ecosystem that correlate with the distress they see in studies.
“The volume of tweets, so how many tweets per day, or week, are we seeing, how many people are tweeting, so both the number of users, you can imagine there's a core group of people who are frequently tweeting about climate change, and then there are people who may engage only in periods of high distress, there's also the frequency at which individuals, who are tweeting about climate change, the frequency at which they are tweeting.”
If they are successful, Card says they would like to develop a tool “to alert healthcare providers, counsellors, people with patients who are vulnerable to climate anxiety or maybe particularly distressed by increases in climate discussions.”
He says it could help improve health care by letting health providers know that it is time to reach out for preventive and preemptive care.
They will also be talking to people about how to characterize climate anxiety observed in the survey through focus groups and cognitive interviewing of people in the community to understand how they use social media and analyze the trends.
They also want to understand how news coverage and climate events overlay some of those trends.
He says they have observed that people who are more vulnerable to distress, in general, are also vulnerable to climate-related anxiety.
Card and the team of demographers, eco-social epidemiologists, environmental researchers, and climate activists launched the Mental Health and Climate Change Alliance.
They piloted a Climate Distress Monitoring System, which used web-based surveys with self-reporting measures to monitor levels of climate-related concerns.
The CDMS pilot collected data during an unprecedented heat dome that settled over British Columbia in June of 2021.
They found climate anxiety rose significantly following the heatwave and then wildfires that burned thousands of hectares of forest.
Card says social media may provide an opportunity to study social level interactions and learn more about what Canadians discuss with each other about climate change and climate anxiety.
They plan to use social media and web-based data to create an automated system for measuring climate-related ecological distress continuously and unobtrusively.
Automated monitoring of climate concerns and distress will allow the MHCCA to study individuals and communities across the entire province over time, resulting in a larger body of evidence.
Card hopes that the data collected could be used to advocate for local and national action on climate change and respond to its human impacts.
"Digital epidemiology is the next frontier of epidemiological research," says Card, "it has tremendous potential to give us a new way to understand the evolving relationship between individuals and their environment while also reducing the burden on research participants.”
Card warns that climate change is impacting people now, and a better response is needed, particularly in light of government inability or unwillingness to enact effective climate control policies.
He says there is a need to "invest in the human capital and human infrastructure of society."
According to Card, more than simply adding insulation for buildings or more efficient AC systems is required, "we need mental health supports, we need community supports, we need to build strong communities that will be resilient to the effects of climate change.”
He says the investment is needed now in human services and our communities.
Professor Card says some harm from climate change will be unavoidable, and we are starting to see them today.
He says climate anxiety differs from climate worry: “when people cross over from worry to anxiety, it is usually indicated by a rise distress that impairs their ability to function in their daily lives.”
He says climate anxiety is a concerning medical condition increasingly affecting people in Canada, particularly young people.
Card says they will decide whether to have families, where to live, and what jobs to pursue based on climate change.
He says we need to a forward-thinking, "not only doing the research, but also acting on what we already know, and I think we already know from our baseline work, and from the broader climate science, that now is the time to start enacting these programs.”