Recommendation

Does concern regarding climate change impact subsequent mental health?

ORCID_LOGO based on reviews by Anna Castiglione and Esther Papies
A recommendation of:

Does concern regarding climate change impact subsequent mental health? A longitudinal analysis using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)

Abstract

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Submission: posted 24 May 2024
Recommendation: posted 06 September 2024, validated 09 September 2024
Cite this recommendation as:
Evans, T. (2024) Does concern regarding climate change impact subsequent mental health?. Peer Community in Registered Reports, . https://rr.peercommunityin.org/PCIRegisteredReports/articles/rec?id=793

Recommendation

The link between climate change and health is becoming increasingly clear, and problematic (IPCC, 2023). While most agree that climate change is a problem (Vlasceanu et al., 2024) and evidence is starting to emerge that individual's wellbeing can benefit from engaging in proenvironmental behaviour (Prinzing, 2023), there is little robust longitudinal evidence available to make causal claims about the complex and inter-related nature of these types of effects.
 
In their proposed study, Major-Smith et al. (2024) use the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to explore whether climate concern has a causal impact upon mental health. Strategic use of this pre-existing data allows consideration of both confounding bias and reverse causality to provide more rigorous evidence for this causal effect. The second research question (whether climate action moderates this relationship) is of both personal and professional interest, as someone who struggles with climate anxiety, and plants hundred of trees annually to try and mitigate the dread. Capable of exploring the potential for individual-level climate action to have a double effect - directly help with climate change mitigation and also an individuals' mental health, the proposed research is a rewarding and insightful line of inquiry in a domain desperate for a more rapid and rigorous evidence-base.
 
The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over one round of review. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).
 
URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/t6d3k
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 2. At least some data/evidence that will be used to answer the research question has been accessed and partially observed by the authors, but the authors certify that they have not yet observed the key variables within the data that will be used to answer the research question AND they have taken additional steps to maximise bias control and rigour.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly Journals:
 
 
References
 
 
2. Major-Smith, D., Halstead, I., & Major-Smith, K. (2024) Does concern regarding climate change impact subsequent mental health? A longitudinal analysis using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/t6d3k
 
3. Prinzing, M. (2023). Proenvironmental Behavior Increases Subjective Well-Being: Evidence From an Experience-Sampling Study and a Randomized Experiment. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976241251766
 
4. Vlasceanu, M., Doell, K. C., Bak-Coleman, J. B., Todorova, B., Berkebile-Weinberg, M. M., Grayson, S. J., ... & Lutz, A. E. (2024). Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries. Science Advances, 10, eadj5778. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adj5778
Conflict of interest:
The recommender in charge of the evaluation of the article and the reviewers declared that they have no conflict of interest (as defined in the code of conduct of PCI) with the authors or with the content of the article.

Evaluation round #1

DOI or URL of the report: https://osf.io/w62e7

Version of the report: 1

Author's Reply, 02 Sep 2024

Decision by ORCID_LOGO, posted 23 Jul 2024, validated 23 Jul 2024

Dear Drs Major-Smith, Halstead and Major-Smith,

I am delighted to see more research in the field of climate change, and I found your proposed work both interesting and important. As an individual who has been planting hundreds of trees as a climate anxiety mitigation strategy, I am both personally and professionally interested in the results of this work!

I have now received two helpful reviews and their appraisals match my own in suggesting that this work is highly valuable and should be conducted. I particularly appreciated the 'threats to causality' section and the balanced discussions surrounding what is possible from the available data. The feedback the reviewers have kindly provided provide a range of modest changes that could help improve the clarity of communication and transparency and I therefore encourage you to consider reflecting upon these and implementing what you deem beneficial before I provide a more definitive decision on the manuscript.

Please systematically work your way through the changes, using tracked changes for any changes to documentation, and a response to reviewer document which discusses what you did/didnt action and why. I will then be very happy to action this manuscript without any further rounds of review.

Take care,

Dr Thomas Rhys Evans

Reviewed by ORCID_LOGO, 22 Jul 2024

Reviewed by , 14 Jul 2024

This is a very thoughtful proposal to use existing longitudinal data to address the question of whether climate change concern affects mental health measured at a later time.  This will contribute very usefully to the ongoing debate whether concerns or anxiety about climate change occur in individuals who are already suffering from ill mental health, or whether they cause or exacerbate mental health problems, or both.  

As the data have already been collected and it is not possible to change any aspect of the study except the planned analyses, this is a somewhat unusual registered report. If given the possibility, for example, I would have advised the authors to measure climate change concern also at T2, and to include other, validated measures of climate anxiety to assess validity.  Given that this is not possible, I only have one suggestion about the analyses, and a few about the write-up – overall, I very much think this study should go ahead and be executed as planned, even though the available data cannot answer all the questions we may have on this topic. I also don't have state-of-the-art expertise on all the analyses proposed, esp regarding treatment of missing data and the interpretation of the resultant findings.

Throughout the manuscript (including figures and figure captions), I would suggest to change the phrasing of “… cause mental health”. From my perspective, if you use the term “cause”, then you would need to refer to a specific outcome (e.g., good mental health, mental health struggles).  If you want to keep the directionality or valence open and simply refer to the domain (i.e., mental health), you might need to use a different term such as “affect” (e.g., “… affect mental health”).

For the final article, I would also advise including more subheadings to provide a clearer structure and overview for the reader, especially in the “Exposures” and “Analyses” sections.  Related, the term “exposures” is unfamiliar to me in this context, could this section also be named “Measures”?

Finally, I would suggest including the variable of “having children” as an additional potential confounder (I assume this is available in the data).  This life change may trigger new or increased worries about the future, but can also affect relationships and mental health especially in the perinatal period, so it would seem useful to control for this, especially in the age group available for the study.

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