Digital Mental Health Innovations in the Face of Climate Change: Navigating a Sustainable Future.

Climate change poses substantial challenges to mental health, with increased frequency of extreme weather events and environmental degradation exacerbating stress, anxiety, trauma, and existential concerns. Digital innovations, particularly artificial intelligence and digital phenotyping, offer promising avenues to mitigate climate-related mental health burdens. The integration of digital tools into climate-related mental health care necessitates careful consideration of issues of access to and adoption of solutions.

Translating research evidence into youth behavioral health policy and action: using a community-engaged storyboard approach.

Introduction: There is nationwide shortage of child and adolescent behavioral health providers. Lack of diversity in the mental health care profession compounds workforce capacity issues, contributing to greater disparities in treatment access and engagement for youth from historically disenfranchised communities. Strategies are needed to foster cross-sector alignment to inform policy which can improve mental health care access and reduce disparities.

Formal youth mentoring relationships in the context of risk: What is the role of caregiver-mentor collaboration?

Most research on youth mentoring relationships has focused on the mentor-mentee dyad, yet caregivers play an important role in supporting these relationships. Drawing on a large, multisite sample of youth in formal mentoring programs (N = 2165), this study investigated associations between caregiver-mentor collaboration and mentoring relationship outcomes in the context of environmental and individual youth risk factors. Analysis of novel quantitative measures assessing caregivers' experiences of the mentoring relationships revealed two factors reflecting caregivers' collaboration with mentors (caregiver involvement and mentor backing), and three factors reflecting caregivers' perceptions of mentor effectiveness (meeting youth needs, advocating for youth, and supporting youth behavior).

Climate change anxiety and mental health: Environmental activism as buffer.

A growing body of research has documented the phenomenon of climate change anxiety (CCA), defined broadly as negative cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses associated with concerns about climate change. A recently validated scale of CCA indicated two subscales: cognitive emotional impairment and functional impairment (Clayton & Karazsia, 2020). However, there are few empirical studies on CCA to date and little evidence regarding whether CCA is associated with psychiatric symptoms, including symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and whether engaging in individual and collective action to address climate change could buffer such relationships.

Adverse childhood experiences: Examining latent classes and associations with physical, psychological, and risk-related outcomes in adulthood.

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are a public health crisis, affecting nearly half of children in the United States. Long-term effects of ACEs on psychological well-being, engagement in risk behaviors, and physical health have been observed. Moreover, many individuals exposed to ACEs are also affected by an accumulation of stressors due to broader structural inequities.

Connecting Youth: The Role of Mentoring Approach.

While formal youth mentoring can positively influence youth connectedness, little research has studied the specific approaches mentors engage in that support mentee social development. This study examines how mentors' specific approaches are uniquely associated with youth connection outcomes in formal community-based mentoring. Participants were 766 youth, ranging in age from 11 to 14 (M = 12.

Heterogeneity in temporal self-appraisals following exposure to potentially traumatic life events: A latent profile analysis.

Background: People tend to believe that they continuously improve over time. In fact, Temporal Self-Appraisal Theory ("Chump to Champ") has found that people are motivated to derogate their past selves in favor of their present selves. Studies on temporal self-appraisals following trauma is less clear, with some studies showing perceived improvement whereas other studies show appraisals of decline.

Pain centrality mediates pain self-efficacy and symptom severity among individuals reporting chronic pain.

Chronic pain is consistently associated with the presence of mental health disorders. Although previous research has shown relations between low levels of self-efficacy with chronic pain severity as well as comorbid mental health symptoms, the link between self-efficacy and mental health symptoms in chronic pain is not well understood. This study examined whether pain centrality, the extent to which pain is viewed as central to self-identity, may underlie these associations.

Natural mentoring relationships among survivors of caregiver childhood abuse: findings from the Add Health Study.

Social support promotes resilience to adverse childhood events, but little is known about the role of natural mentors-caring, nonparental adults-in the lives of childhood abuse survivors. The current study draws from a large, longitudinal, nationally representative sample (Add Health) to examine the prevalence and characteristics of natural mentoring relationships for adolescents with a history of caregiver childhood abuse, and the extent to which these relationships are associated with psychological and health outcomes in adulthood. Among the sample (n = 12,270), 28.

Posttraumatic stress symptoms and access to services among human rights advocates: The mediating roles of organizational encouragement of support seeking and occupation-related appraisals.

Human rights advocates are routinely exposed to direct and secondary trauma. In addition, a growing body of research has found that trauma exposure in human rights work is associated with depression, burnout, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in human rights advocates. Despite the potential mental health risks associated with advocacy, little is known about the ways in which organizational and individual factors contribute to mental health symptoms, such as PTSD, in this population.