Environment and Climate
In This Section

Environment and Climate

The Environment and Climate Research team conducts world-leading research to understand how environmental change and climate impacts affect young people’s mental health and wellbeing, and to develop evidence-based interventions to address these impacts. The team’s work spans climate impact assessment, interventions for climate-related distress, measurement development, health promotion, integrated mental health and environmental education, and research on climate-related disasters. 

Why is this research area important?  

Climate change is reshaping how young people live, learn, and imagine their futures. Acute events (e.g., extreme heat, bushfires, floods, and storms) disrupt health, education, and daily life, while slower stressors (uncertainty, loss of place or livelihood, and perceived injustice) create a persistent psychological burden. Together, these pressures are driving rising anxiety, grief, trauma, and loneliness, particularly among young people already facing social and economic disadvantage. Young people are disproportionately affected, and those living with existing mental health conditions experience the greatest vulnerability, including heightened risks during extreme heat and climate-related disasters. Yet these mental health impacts remain under-recognised, under-measured and poorly responded to. Targeted research is essential to build the evidence base, inform policy and practice, develop and implement interventions that reduce harm while strengthening resilience, agency, and connection in a changing climate. 

What this area delivers  

  • Measuring impact: Build a clear picture of how the built and natural environment, including climate change, affects mental health and wellbeing. Addressing who is most affected, in which contexts, and through what mechanisms.  

  • Identify needs: Use common measures and participatory approaches to identify needs early and equitably across schools, communities and clinical services.  

  • Interventions: Co-design, evaluate and implement effective supports (e.g., nature-based, peer-led, digital, social prescribing) that reduce disaster impacts, build climate resilience and improve wellbeing.  

  • Practice and policy: Generate comparable evidence to inform policy, commissioning and funding, and equip young people and communities to take meaningful, wellbeing-supporting climate action.  

  • Workforce and collaboration: Build capacity through training, toolkits and communities of practice, and foster cross-sector partnerships (education, health, environment, emergency management, youth organisations) to scale what works. 

Key research questions  

  • Which aspects of the built and natural environment influence youth mental health and wellbeing, for which groups, through what mechanisms, and in which contexts?  

  • How should we measure climate-related mental health outcomes consistently across studies and services, and reduce inequities for priority groups?  

  • Which interventions are most effective, acceptable and scalable in schools, clinical services and communities?  

  • How can we design and develop clear pathways that identify needs early and connect young people to appropriate care?  

Current research projects  

Platform for Research and Interventions in youth Mental health and the Environment (PRIME)  

PRIME is an NHMRC-funded research platform co-led by A/Prof Caroline Gao (Orygen, University of Melbourne) and A/Prof Rebecca Patrick (University of Melbourne). PRIME accelerates the development, evaluation and implementation of group-based interventions addressing climate-related mental health impacts in young people (12–25 years).  

EcoConnections: Building community for those concerned about climate and the environment 

EcoConnections, led by Orygen Project Coordinator, Dr Jana Menssink, is a green social-prescribing model co-designed with young people (16–29) and delivered with Museums Victoria and the University of Melbourne. It blends environmental and other hands-on activities and peer facilitation to build social connection, reduce isolation and cultivate agency.  

Y-CARE: Youth Co-Designing Adaptations for Resilience and Empowerment  

Y-CARE is an international collaboration between CIRCLE at Stanford Psychiatry, Foundry BC in Canada, Orygen and headspace in Australia. The project brings together climate-concerned youth (16–25) to co-design a youth-led support model for addressing climate distress and building resilience. At Orygen, this collaboration is co-led by Dr Hasini Gunasiri and Dr Jana Menssink.  

EM-Health: Environ-Mental Health framework and outcome measure  

EM-Health is an international collaboration, led by A/Prof Caroline Gao and Sunny Nguyen, aimed at establishing a new strengths-based, socio-environmental approach that understands mental health as grounded in our relationships with nature, place and community. It brings together climate-related emotional impacts, disaster recovery, nature-based wellbeing, environmental efficacy and agency, and community resilience to guide prevention, early intervention and scalable supports in a changing climate. 

Completed projects 

The Climate Change Feeling, Thinking, Behaviour Archetypes  

was a national mixed-methods study led by the University of Melbourne in partnership with Orygen and Mission Australia, led by Sam Eala, drawing on responses from over 3,000 Australian adolescents aged 13–19 years. The project examined how climate change shapes young people’s emotions, beliefs, and behaviours, identifying widespread climate-related distress alongside engagement, agency, and future-oriented action. Through a co-designed analytic approach, the study developed integrated archetypes that capture heterogeneity in young people’s climate responses, providing an evidence base to inform youth mental-health policy and climate-responsive prevention and early-intervention strategies. 

Resources