Climate Worry Runs High Among Rural Turkish Teens, Study Finds

Vezirköprü, Türkiye — Climate worry runs high among rural Turkish teenagers, and it is closely tied to their mental health: nearly half of the 782 high school students surveyed in a new peer-reviewed study scored at or above the clinical cut-off for generalized anxiety. The study, published on 16 October 2026 in the journal BMC Public Health, offers one of the clearest snapshots yet of how climate change weighs on the minds of young people far from the big cities.

The research surveyed students in grades 9 through 12 across all public high schools in Vezirköprü district, in Türkiye’s northern Samsun province, between April and June 2026. Each student completed two validated instruments: the Climate Change Worry Scale, which measures the intensity of climate-related concern, and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale, a widely used clinical screening tool for anxiety symptoms. The study was approved by the Samsun University Non-Interventional Clinical Research Ethics Committee, and written consent was obtained from the parents or guardians of participants under 18.

Climate worry and anxiety move together

The headline numbers are striking. The average climate-worry score was 30.31, and the average anxiety score was 8.78 — but 353 students, or 45.1 percent of the sample, scored at or above 10 on the anxiety scale, the threshold conventionally used to flag probable generalized anxiety disorder.

Most consequential was the relationship between the two measures: climate worry and generalized anxiety were moderately correlated, with a Spearman coefficient of 0.573 and a p-value below 0.001. The author is careful to note what this means — and what it does not. The data cannot determine whether climate worry drives anxiety, whether already-anxious students ruminate more on global threats, or whether both share common underlying drivers. The pattern is correlational, not causal, but its strength in a sample of this size is hard to dismiss.

Girls, heavy social media users hit hardest

Regression analysis revealed which factors independently predicted climate worry. Female students were the most affected sociodemographic group: their median climate-worry score was 34.0, compared with 26.0 for boys. Students who had experienced an extreme weather event in their local area within the past year scored higher than those who had not, at 33.0 versus 30.0.

Social media use showed the sharpest gradient of all. Students spending less than one hour a day on social platforms had a median worry score of 25.0; those using them one to six hours scored 30.0; and those exceeding six hours a day reached 36.0. Heavy use — more than six hours daily — carried a standardized effect of 0.275 in the regression model, close behind the anxiety score itself (0.339). Constant exposure to climate news, disaster imagery and online discourse about environmental collapse may keep the threat psychologically salient in ways traditional media do not — though the study cannot prove causation, since already-worried students may also seek out more climate content online.

FAKTA

• What: A cross-sectional study of 782 high school students in Vezirköprü, Samsun, Türkiye, measuring climate worry and generalized anxiety.
• Published: 16 October 2026 in BMC Public Health (open access, DOI 10.1186/s12889-026-29987-2).
• Key finding: 45.1% of students scored at or above the clinical cut-off for generalized anxiety; climate worry and anxiety scores were moderately correlated (ρ = 0.573).
• Most affected: Female students (median 34.0 vs 26.0), students using social media more than six hours a day (36.0 vs 25.0), and students who had experienced a local extreme weather event.
• Author’s recommendation: School-based mental health and climate literacy programmes addressing climate-related distress, with particular attention to girls and heavy social media users.

Schools can be part of the answer

The study’s author, public health specialist Dr Yasin Sağlam, District Health Director in Vezirköprü, argues that the findings point to a concrete response. School-based interventions addressing climate-related distress could serve a dual purpose: easing a specific source of worry while providing an entry point for identifying students with broader anxiety disorders who need clinical support. Rural areas frequently lack adequate mental health services, making schools the natural — and sometimes the only — place to reach these teenagers.

Why rural teens matter in the climate conversation

What distinguishes this study is its rural focus. Rural districts are often assumed to be insulated from the psychological effects of climate change because they lack the dense media environments and activist cultures of large cities. Yet direct encounters with floods, droughts, storms or heatwaves in one’s own community appear to turn abstract global narratives into concrete personal vulnerability — suggesting that as extreme weather becomes more frequent, the mental burden on rural adolescents will grow.

The timing is notable for Türkiye itself: the country hosts COP31 in Antalya from 9 to 20 November 2026, where 14 November is dedicated to children, youth, education and skills. Türkiye recently became the 100th member of UNESCO’s Greening Education Partnership, putting learning and youth at the heart of its climate agenda.

For more on young people and the climate agenda, see Watan News’ climate news coverage and our earlier report on COP31 putting youth and education centre stage.

The study adds to the growing international literature on eco-anxiety — chronic worry about environmental degradation — and provides, in the author’s words, a rigorous baseline for understanding how adolescents in less-studied settings process the climate threat, plus a template for similar research elsewhere.

Frequently asked questions

What did the Turkish study actually measure?

It measured two things in 782 high school students (grades 9–12) in Vezirköprü, Samsun, between April and June 2026: climate-related worry, using the validated Climate Change Worry Scale, and generalized anxiety symptoms, using the clinical GAD-7 screening tool. The study was peer-reviewed and published in BMC Public Health on 16 October 2026.

Does climate worry cause anxiety, or is it the other way round?

The study cannot say. Climate worry and anxiety scores were moderately correlated (ρ = 0.573, p < 0.001), but correlation is not causation — it is equally possible that climate worry fuels anxiety, that anxious students ruminate more on global threats, or that both share common drivers. The author explicitly flags this limitation.

Which teenagers were most affected?

Girls (median worry score 34.0 vs 26.0 for boys), students spending more than six hours a day on social media (36.0 vs 25.0 for under an hour), and students who had experienced an extreme weather event in their area within the past year (33.0 vs 30.0). All differences were statistically significant.

What does the study recommend?

School-based mental health and climate literacy programmes that address climate-related distress directly, with particular attention to female students and heavy social media users — and that can also identify students with broader anxiety disorders who need clinical support.

Why does this matter beyond Türkiye?

It is one of the first studies to quantify climate worry in a rural adolescent population using a validated clinical anxiety measure alongside it. As extreme weather grows more frequent, the mental-health burden on rural youth — far from the cities that dominate climate coverage — is likely to grow too. The finding lands weeks before COP31 in Antalya, where youth and education take centre stage on 14 November.