(PS4-C75) Populations at Elevated Risk for Climate Anxiety

Introduction:  Societal factors such as poverty, education, property, and income sources make marginalized populations more vulnerable to the effects of climate change (Pearse, 2016). Gender gaps for the impacts of climate change are correlated with economic development. A huge proponent of these gender gaps is cultural norms and values as the economic development of different countries plays a large role (Bush & Clayton, 2022). With this information, we hypothesize that race, gender, and their intersection will have an impact on climate anxiety. 

Methods: Data was collected from 523 college students through self-report measures. The questionnaire consisted of scales such as the Food Insecurity scale and the Climate Anxiety Scale After a round of preliminary data cleaning, which consisted of removing incomplete responses or responses that were submitted within less than seven minutes, 443 responses were retained. Of these responses, 222 were cisgender women, 192 were cisgender men, 7 were transgender men, 14 people were gender non-confirming individuals, and 8 identified as other. ANOVAs were performed to compare the effect of gender on climate anxiety. 

Results: The ANOVAs revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in cognitive-emotional impairment due to climate anxiety (F(4, 432) = 4.119, p = .003), experiences with climate changes (F (4, 434) = 6.703 p </span>< .001), behavior due to climate anxiety (F (4, 433) = 4.137 p </span>= .003) and overall climate anxiety (F(4, 430) = 2.885, p = .033). For each category, cisgender people are less likely to be impacted by climate anxiety, with cisgender men being the least impacted. The next part of the analysis will consist of an ANOVA, examining racial differences and the interaction of race and gender with the same dependent variables. Additional data cleaning is required to reach that stage.    

Implications: This study will help determine which populations are more vulnerable to food insecurity and the impacts of climate change. This is curial information for policy development regarding climate change and food insecurity. Further research can be done to better understand the impact of food insecurity and climate anxiety on marginalized populations, paving the road for mitigation and support. One major limitation of this study is that transgender women were placed in the ‘other’ category due to the small sample size. With the findings of this study, future research should focus on the impact of climate change on gender minorities.