Coping with eco-anxiety: An interdisciplinary perspective for collective learning and strategic communication

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change and ecological crisis are affecting people's mental health. One such manifestation, eco-anxiety, is anxiety in the form of negative, troublesome, and automatic physiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to climate change and ecological degradation. The speed, scale, and severity of unfolding environmental crises will continue to exacerbate experiences of eco-anxiety. Scholars and practitioners are still in the early stages of understanding and addressing the phenomenon. To help prioritize future endeavors, we advocate for an interdisciplinary approach to address the urgency and complexity of eco-anxiety, which can be understood in the context of a larger problem facing humanity. We provide an eco-anxiety primer based on recent scoping reviews and seminal empirical research. Additionally, we recommend four opportunities for collective learning and strategic communication: (1) motivational and actionable message framing, (2) storytelling for social and behavior change, (3) knowledge sharing and linked resources, and (4) positive deviance for complex problem-solving. We hope this article will benefit health practitioners, media professionals, academic researchers, policy makers, community leaders, climate activists, and other stakeholders.