Session: Climate Change, Mental Health, and Structural Inequality: Integrating Ecosocial and Environmental Justice Perspectives across Diverse Communities (Society for Social Work and Research 31st Annual Conference)

As climate change intensifies, its mental health consequences, including climate anxiety, ecological distress, and disaster-related psychological burden, are increasingly recognized as critical domains for social work research. However, these outcomes are not evenly distributed but are shaped by structural inequalities, environmental injustice, and sociopolitical systems that differentially expose communities to risk while unevenly distributing resources for coping and adaptation. Despite growing scholarly attention, much of the literature remains fragmented, often privileging individual-level frameworks while under examining the structural, relational, and place-based conditions that produce climate-related mental health outcomes.

This symposium brings together three empirical studies and two conceptual/theoretical contributions to advance a cohesive, ecosocial, and environmental justice informed understanding of climate change and mental health. Across diverse populations, including rural farmers, disaster-affected individuals, Indigenous communities, racially diverse populations, and young adults, these papers examine how structural risk, lived experience, and sociopolitical context shape emotional and cognitive responses to climate change. Together, they argue that climate-related mental health must be understood not as an individualized phenomenon, but as a socially produced and unevenly distributed outcome embedded within systems of power, including neoliberal political economy, settler colonialism, and environmental inequality.

The first empirical paper examines the relationship between structural environmental risk and climate change anxiety among young adults, highlighting the complex role of social connectedness. Findings suggest that, rather than buffering distress, social connectedness may intensify climate anxiety by amplifying awareness of collective vulnerability and moral responsibility.

The second empirical paper draws on nationally representative data to examine how prior disaster experience shapes perceived risk and concern about disaster preparedness. Results indicate that individuals with lived disaster experience report higher perceived risk and concern, underscoring the importance of integrating experiential knowledge into preparedness and mental health interventions.

The third empirical paper centers rural farmers’ experiences, using participatory and qualitative methods to examine how agricultural systems, economic pressures, and environmental uncertainty shape mental health and climate-related distress. Findings highlight how structural constraints, policy disincentives, and social fragmentation contribute to both psychological burden and barriers to climate adaptation.

The fourth empirical paper examines solastalgia and adaptation intentions among Indigenous Peoples facing environmental change. Findings indicate that emotional distress related to ecological degradation is shaped by gender, education, and land-based relationships, and that solastalgia predicts future adaptation intentions, underscoring the importance of culturally grounded, community-informed approaches that center Indigenous knowledge and lived experience.

The fifth paper, a theoretical contribution, advances a structural account of climate anxiety through the lens of Ulrich Beck’s risk society thesis, conceptualizing climate anxiety as a socially produced affective condition arising from manufactured risk, neoliberal individualization, and the erosion of institutional trust.

Collectively, this symposium advances emerging frameworks in social work by integrating empirical evidence with theoretical perspectives to deepen understanding of climate-related mental health as a function of structural inequality, lived experience, and relational processes. It addresses a critical gap by bridging individual-level outcomes with broader environmental justice contexts. Implications include incorporating mental health into climate resilience planning, centering marginalized voices, and advancing systemic, justice-oriented responses.