Jennifer Atkinson Receives Population Health Initiative Grant

The University of Washington Population Health Initiative awarded 13 Tier 1 pilot grants to teams of interdisciplinary researchers representing 11 UW schools and colleges. Among those receiving the award was Jennifer Atkinson’s team, led by principal investigator Dr. Jessica Acolin of UW’s Department of Psychiatry. The team includes four researchers from Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at UW Seattle, an Epidemiology Fellow from Seattle & King County Public Health, and Atkinson, who represents the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Science at UW Bothell.

The project, titled Integrating end-user needs and perspectives in the measurement of young adult climate change distress will focus on measuring Climate Distress among youth. Acknowledging and experiencing the effects of climate change can elicit negative emotions (e.g. anxiety, grief), or “climate change distress” (CC-D). CC-D is especially elevated among young adults.

Some research has indicated CC-D may be linked to adverse health outcomes, indicating a need for further research of climate-related health outcomes among young adults. Yet, research has been limited by the lack of a brief measure of CC-D suitable for epidemiologic surveys.

In the current project, the team aims to develop a brief Climate Distress Questionnaire (CDQ) to measure climate distress. They propose to convene a panel of CDQ end-users, including survey administrators and public health professionals, to refine the questionnaire and conduct qualitative pre-testing among young adults. This project will lay the foundation for multiple future research projects examining impacts of climate change on mental and physical health, health disparities, and prevention targets. The research teams brings complementary expertise as well as strong community relationships suited to this project.