Rapid urbanisation, climate inaction taking toll on youth mental health: WEF panel

SINGAPORE – By the year 2050, 70 per cent of the world’s adolescents will live in cities. But urban living has been shown to be a risk factor for poor mental health among youth, as heightened inequalities exposes them to adversities like poverty and violence that impact their well-being.

Currently, one in seven adolescents around the world lives with a mental health condition.

The panacea to this, said Dr Pamela Collins, professor and chair of the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins University, lies in young people having quality relationships with their communities.

“Rapid urbanisation is a cause of disparities. And these kinds of deep disparities expose people to adversities – everything from poverty and violence. And these of course are damaging to people’s mental health and well-being,” said Dr Collins.

How accelerated urbanisation and climate change contribute to the rise in emotional disorders among young people was discussed at a panel at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, China on June 26.

The meeting gathers over 1,600 leaders from business, government, civil society and international organisations, to generate insights and deployable solutions that can spur and maintain positive economic momentum globally.

The panel titled, Less Tech, More Play, was moderated by ST editor Jaime Ho.

Dr Collins said that in the course of her study on making cities mental-health-friendly for adolescents and young adults, she consulted experts on how aspects of urban life can be shaped to positively impact adolescent well-being and adult trajectories.

They found that a city could only be considered mental health-friendly for youth if young people could foster quality relationships with their communities.

Cities thus need to provide youth with the skills, opportunities and places required to build and maintain healthy social relationships, she said.

Dr Collins added that transforming cities to support youth mental health aligns with goals to achieve sustainable development.

“Principles of sustainable cities are the same kinds of principles that support mental health in general. This means leaving no one behind, ending poverty, ensuring equal rights and opportunities, and ensuring people have access to education, food security and housing,” she said.

These principles include adapting to climate change, she added.

Her sentiments were shared by Dr Emma Lawrance, who said youth mental health depends on connections in their social and environmental contexts. “It is this environmental context that I felt was missing from discussions around what’s plaguing young people. What is the world that they’re inheriting and growing up in?”

Dr Lawrance, a mental health innovations fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at the Imperial College London, said that apart from psychological resilience and healthy relationships, young people also need assurance that their leaders are not ignoring climate change.

“What I find, talking to a lot of young people around the world, is that the future to them seems to be getting worse and not better, more unstable, and more uncertain. And it’s destabilising all of those things that they say they need for thriving.”

She said that the price of climate inaction will be the mental health of the young people inheriting the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced

Dr Lawrance said that mental health education needs to be integrated with climate education, as climate action is an opportunity multiplier for mental health.

“It is our responsibility in this generation, to seize the biggest opportunity that has ever existed for us, to transform society in a way that’s healthier for our minds, as well as the planet.”