Effects of a Novel Psychosocial Climate Resilience Course on Climate Distress, Self-Efficacy, and Mental Health in Young Adults

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Abstract

 

The abstract establishes the importance of addressing youth climate anxiety and its connection to mental health and civic engagement. However, it could briefly elaborate on why climate anxiety is a significant obstacle to civic engagement, providing a stronger context for the study's relevance.

 

The abstract is well-written, but some phrases, such as "decreases in climate distress with (a) decreases in depressive symptoms and (b) improvements in coping with climate emotions," could be more succinct. Additionally, transitioning between results and conclusions could be smoother.

 

Introduction

 

The introduction provides a strong foundation by establishing the urgency of addressing climate and ecosystem changes and their impact on youth well-being. However, the section could benefit from a clearer structure, as the transition between topics (e.g., from climate resilience training to course development) is somewhat abrupt. Consider adding subheadings or transition sentences to improve the flow.

 

The introduction effectively highlights the need for climate resilience education, supported by global trends in climate anxiety and mental health. However, it would be helpful to briefly specify the unique challenges young adults face compared to other age groups. This would strengthen the argument for focusing on this demographic.

 

The authors identify a gap in existing interventions for youth and adults that address climate distress. This is an important point, but the claim that "there is only one course for university students" needs to be substantiated with more details or a citation to clarify its scope and methodology. Otherwise, the claim may appear too broad or unsupported.

 

The learning objectives of the Climate Resilience course are well-articulated, particularly the focus on "universal skills" and perspective shifts. The emphasis on experiential group learning, mindfulness, and nature immersion is compelling. However, the theoretical underpinnings (e.g., mindfulness, Acceptance Commitment Therapy) could be more explicitly connected to their expected outcomes to demonstrate the rationale behind these choices.

 

The section references several studies to support claims about resilience training, mental health interventions, and the role of nature immersion. However, these references could be better integrated into the text. For instance, linking specific findings from cited studies to the course design would strengthen the argument for its efficacy.

The introduction could be more relevant by connecting it to broader educational or public health initiatives. For example, discussing how the course aligns with global efforts to integrate climate resilience into education (e.g., UNESCO or UN SDGs) could enhance its relevance.

The introduction emphasizes the course's positive aspects and underlying assumptions. However, acknowledging potential challenges or limitations in implementing such a course (e.g., scalability, cultural differences, or resource constraints) would provide a more balanced perspective.

 

Materials and Methods

 

While the number of participants and their recruitment sources are mentioned, the lack of demographic details (e.g., age, gender, ethnic background) limits the ability to generalize the findings or understand how various subgroups may have experienced the intervention differently. Including this information would enhance the study's applicability and relevance.

 

Addressing the impact of campus protests is an important step, but the methodology for assessing this confounding effect could be improved. The single self-report item and broad question about "campus climate" lack specificity and may not capture the nuanced ways in which protests impacted students. A more detailed measure or follow-up questions could provide richer data.

 

Secondary outcomes such as climate hope, altruism, and loneliness are measured using single-item or adapted scales. While this is understandable, given the study's exploratory nature, reliance on single-item measures can compromise reliability and validity. Including fully validated scales where possible would strengthen these measurements.

 

While thematic analysis is suitable, describing how themes were condensed and validated is somewhat vague. Providing examples of the themes, coding process, and inter-rater reliability scores would add credibility to the qualitative analysis.

 

The absence of a control group limits the ability to attribute observed changes solely to the intervention. While this may not have been feasible, acknowledging this limitation more explicitly would strengthen the methodology section.

The one-month follow-up for qualitative interviews is relatively short and may not capture the course's longer-term impacts. A longer follow-up period could provide insights into the sustainability of the outcomes.

 

The intervention was implemented across eight campuses, but the degree of consistency in delivery is unclear. For example, did all instructors receive identical training and were there any variations in how the course was delivered across campuses? Addressing these points would improve replicability.

 

Results

 

No comments

 

Discussion

 

While the student quotes are compelling, the discussion relies heavily on anecdotal evidence to support claims, which may give the impression of cherry-pickinfavourablele outcomes. Balancing these quotes with broader quantitative trends or statistical evidence would strengthen the argument.

 

The section does not address the potential limitations in generalizing findings to broader populations, such as non-student groups or individuals from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Explicacknowledgementent of these constraints would improve the study's validity.

 

While the section briefly discusses the role of mindfulness and nature immersion, it does not delve into the mechanisms by which these components led to the observed outcomes. A more detailed explanation of how these interventions affect cognitive and emotional processes would enhance the theoretical contribution.

 

The discussion references positive feedback from teachers but does not address potential biases inherent in anecdotal reports from instructors. Discussing whether and how these observations were systematically evaluated would be valuable.

 

While the primary outcomes are well-addressed, secondary outcomes such as altruism, community belonging, and climate hope are briefly mentioned. Expanding on these aspects would provide a more comprehensive picture of the intervention's impact.

 

The discussion does not critically engage with possible shortcomings or unexpected findings. For instance, were there any challenges in implementing the course or achieving uniform results across campuses? Including this reflection would add rigour and balance to the discussion.

 

Conclusions

 

While the conclusion celebrates the intervention's success, it lacks critical reflection on challenges encountered during the study, such as variability in implementation across campuses or differences in student engagement. Including this reflection would provide a more balanced perspective.

 

The conclusion makes optimistic claims about the intervention's promise without adequately addressing the generalizability of the findings to other populations or settings. Including cautionary statements about the study's limitations would enhance the section's rigour.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Abstract
 
The abstract establishes the importance of addressing youth climate anxiety and its connection to mental health and civic engagement. However, it could briefly elaborate on why climate anxiety is a significant obstacle to civic engagement, providing a stronger context for the study's relevance.

Thank you for this comment. Climate distress/anxiety has been found to be associated with greater depression and anxiety symptoms, and also with greater climate engagement in some studies. Thus climate anxiety is not the same as general anxiety in that it can have at least two effects: greater anxiety as well as increased motivation to engage in climate advocacy and sustainability. Thus, we have removed the phrase that climate distress is an obstacle to climate engagement from the 1st paragraph of the abstract since the relationship is complicated.

We have revised the abstract to read as follows to be more succinct  and to list climate anxiety and confidence for advocacy efforts as two different outcomes. 

“Background: The sustainability of ecosystems and human flourishing depends on the well-being of younger generations who are most at risk. Increasing youth climate distress is an important public and mental health issue. Training in resilience skills and climate advocacy may be accomplished in educational settings, and we aimed to test the efficacy of such training in a university setting.” 

The abstract is well-written, but some phrases, such as "decreases in climate distress with (a) decreases in depressive symptoms and (b) improvements in coping with climate emotions," could be more succinct. Additionally, transitioning between results and conclusions could be smoother.

Based on your comment, we revised the abstract Methods section to be more clear and succinct. We also added our newly analyzed 5 month follow up data: 

Results: From baseline to immediately post-course in 150 of 190 (79%) assessment responders, students showed significantly reduced climate distress, depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms, and enhanced climate self-efficacy.  Course related reductions in climate distress were associated with (a) lower depressive symptoms and (b) greater coping with climate emotions. Secondary outcomes showed increases in actions taken to combat climate change, community belonging, altruism for climate causes, and decreases in climate-related loneliness. At 5-months post-course, improvements were sustained for most primary outcomes (climate distress, depression, anxiety, stress, and 3 of 4 facets of climate self-efficacy).
Conclusions: The CR course yielded improvements in mental health and confidence to collectively contribute to climate change solutions, with evidence of long-term maintenance. The next challenge is to replicate the findings and disseminate the CR course effectively across educational settings. This will help promote engagement in youth in climate solutions and help promote sustainability of ecosystems, importantly while nurturing personal resilience.

Introduction
 
The introduction provides a strong foundation by establishing the urgency of addressing climate and ecosystem changes and their impact on youth well-being. However, the section could benefit from a clearer structure, as the transition between topics (e.g., from climate resilience training to course development) is somewhat abrupt. Consider adding subheadings or transition sentences to improve the flow.

Response: We appreciate your point and we have revised and improved the Introduction. We have added headings to mark sections more clearly as you advised. 

The introduction effectively highlights the need for climate resilience education, supported by global trends in climate anxiety and mental health. However, it would be helpful to briefly specify the unique challenges young adults face compared to other age groups. This would strengthen the argument for focusing on this demographic.
 
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We now specify unique challenges, and cite research supporting the higher rates of climate change-related psychological distress in young adults compared to all other age groups in the first paragraph of the Introduction: 

Anthropogenic climate and ecosystem changes are challenging the well-being of all living beings. There is increasing evidence that younger adults are especially threatened by the impact of climate change (Ballew et al, 2024) with the Gen Z/Millennial groups reporting high rates of climate change related psychological distress  (Lewandowski et al, 2024).  Young adults are still developing coping skills, and have more than twice the rate of anxiety symptoms than older adults (Terilizzi, 2024). Their lives will be more impacted by climate change, and in the recent survey, a majority of young adults report the future is frightening (76%), and climate change will impact their future plans (63%) (Lewandowski, 2024).

The authors identify a gap in existing interventions for youth and adults that address climate distress. This is an important point, but the claim that "there is only one course for university students" needs to be substantiated with more details or a citation to clarify its scope and methodology. Otherwise, the claim may appear too broad or unsupported.
 
Response: Thank you for pointing this out and giving us the opportunity to clarify and specify the gap in the literature that our study addresses. We have added this to the introduction: 

A review shows that climate distress interventions focused on teaching coping skills have improved mental health outcomes in adults (Xue et al, 2024) However, there are no longitudinal quantitative studies of in-person climate resilience training in university students.

The learning objectives of the Climate Resilience course are well-articulated, particularly the focus on "universal skills" and perspective shifts. The emphasis on experiential group learning, mindfulness, and nature immersion is compelling. However, the theoretical underpinnings (e.g., mindfulness, Acceptance Commitment Therapy) could be more explicitly connected to their expected outcomes to demonstrate the rationale behind these choices.

Response: Based on your comment, we revised the Introduction and added a section on “Theoretical underpinnings” that describes the main theories of change that motivate the class components, and a section “Linking CR Course Components to primary outcomes” that lists examples of components and links them to the relevant outcomes. 

Theoretical underpinnings
The theoretical frameworks that served as a basis for the development of our CR course were Acceptance Commitment Training (ACT) and self-determination theory (SDT).  ACT emphasizes acceptance of reality as it is, cultivation of psychological flexibility, and values-based committed action in the world. It also includes mindfulness skills to further promote emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and expand ability to see the perspective of others.  The CR course integrates these ideas as fundamental to facing the ecological crisis in an effective way.  SDT consists of three key components: individuals aspire to control actions and life trajectory (autonomy), to gain mastery and be effective (competence), and to feel connected to others (relatedness); all of these derive from intrinsic (not extrinsic) motivation and support well-being.(ref[pg1]  )  Group climate projects can enhance cohesive community, social resilience, and collective learning with classmates and instructors[7].  Identifying and transforming grief and despair involves understanding that we experience challenging emotions about the evolving climate crisis because we love and care deeply about living beings, ecosystems, and the earth. [8]

The section references several studies to support claims about resilience training, mental health interventions, and the role of nature immersion. However, these references could be better integrated into the text. For instance, linking specific findings from cited studies to the course design would strengthen the argument for its efficacy.

Response: Here we show how examples of course components are thought to impact the measured outcomes:

Linking CR course components to primary outcomes
We expect that learning about the range of methods and viewpoints discussed by the wide array of speakers would both promote perspective taking, and inspire the group climate projects. The small group discussions and exercises sharing emotions and views in each class may decrease loneliness and increase collective self-efficacy. The experiential exercises, included, for example, Joanna Macy’s prompt to “Write a letter to the planet, acknowledging the devastation, expressing your sorrow, and simultaneously finding strength and hope in the interconnectedness of all life, and outlining the actions you will take to heal and regenerate the world around you,” and range of contemplative practices (a variety of mindfulness, compassion, expressing emotions, interconnection and nature meditations) may promote  improvements in mental health, climate distress, and self-efficacy.  Being in a psychologically safe class environment with fellow students may support emotional processing of climate related fear, dread and anger, and thereby enhance emotional coping and distress tolerance. The nature immersion experience may enhance nature connectedness. The group climate project provides an experience of communal action and may reduce loneliness and increase belonging and  collective self-efficacy for change.

The introduction could be more relevant by connecting it to broader educational or public health initiatives. For example, discussing how the course aligns with global efforts to integrate climate resilience into education (e.g., UNESCO or UN SDGs) could enhance its relevance.

Response: We have added this to the introduction:

This course complements other courses that might include some of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Our class does not focus on the specific SDGs, but prepares students psychosocially for engaging in the wide range of jobs that promote the goals of SDGs such as sustainable businesses, and environmental management, which require advocacy skills, persistence in the face of obstacles, and working in community.

The introduction emphasizes the course's positive aspects and underlying assumptions. However, acknowledging potential challenges or limitations in implementing such a course (e.g., scalability, cultural differences, or resource constraints) would provide a more balanced perspective.

Response: We have acknowledged the challenges and limitations in the discussion. 

This course development and evaluation showed promising set of improvements.  However, the biggest limitation is that we lacked a control group in this initial test of the intervention.  Future challenges include the ability to adapt the course to emphasize in depth the specific climate challenges of various regions, and to be adapted to different cultural contexts and community settings, taking into account norms and values that may promote or detract from the values and motivations for planetary stewardship.  The class could potentially be taught in resource poor environments with appropriate support of a teacher, such as videos of mindfulness or a mindfulness coach that guides the class remotely.  We hope to collaborate with and support other institutions to test such modifications in future extensions of the class.  

 
Materials and Methods
 
While the number of participants and their recruitment sources are mentioned, the lack of demographic details (e.g., age, gender, ethnic background) limits the ability to generalize the findings or understand how various subgroups may have experienced the intervention differently. Including this information would enhance the study's applicability and relevance.
 
We added more text to further clarify the demographics of the participants as follows on pages 10-11

Participants. Approximately 79% (150 of 190) of participants completed the baseline survey across the 8 UC campuses. As shown in Table 1, participants were primarily female (71%), Asian (39.6%), White (22.1%) and Hispanic (19.5%), undergraduates (72.3%) or graduate students (12.6%), in good or excellent health (93.1%), with a mean age of 23.2 (standard deviation = 8.5) years of age. 

Addressing the impact of campus protests is an important step, but the methodology for assessing this confounding effect could be improved. The single self-report item and broad question about "campus climate" lack specificity and may not capture the nuanced ways in which protests impacted students. A more detailed measure or follow-up questions could provide richer data.
 
We agree and have added this to the limitation section:
Another limitation is that we could not fully evaluate the impact of the campus protests, and would benefit from a more detailed assessment than our single item assessment. 

Secondary outcomes such as climate hope, altruism, and loneliness are measured using single-item or adapted scales. While this is understandable, given the study's exploratory nature, reliance on single-item measures can compromise reliability and validity. Including fully validated scales where possible would strengthen these measurements.

Response: We have added this to the limitations. 
 
While thematic analysis is suitable, describing how themes were condensed and validated is somewhat vague. Providing examples of the themes, coding process, and inter-rater reliability scores would add credibility to the qualitative analysis.

Response:  We have added more detail on the qualitative methods in a supplement and provide a table of all quotes extracted.
 
The absence of a control group limits the ability to attribute observed changes solely to the intervention. While this may not have been feasible, acknowledging this limitation more explicitly would strengthen the methodology section.  

Response: We have added this to the limitations. 

The one-month follow-up for qualitative interviews is relatively short and may not capture the course's longer-term impacts. A longer follow-up period could provide insights into the sustainability of the outcomes.

Response: We have now analyzed and reported a five month follow up on the primary outcomes. 
 
The intervention was implemented across eight campuses, but the degree of consistency in delivery is unclear. For example, did all instructors receive identical training and were there any variations in how the course was delivered across campuses? Addressing these points would improve replicability.

Response:  We have added this to the limitations. 
We were also not able to compare how the class might have differed across the 8 campuses. However, all teachers followed the same detailed curriculum and met each week by video conference across campuses to prepare the sessions and debrief about the past session. 
 
 
Discussion
 
While the student quotes are compelling, the discussion relies heavily on anecdotal evidence to support claims, which may give the impression of cherry-picking favorable outcomes. Balancing these quotes with broader quantitative trends or statistical evidence would strengthen the argument.

Response: We have now shown all qualitative quotes in the appendix.  We now add more summary of the quantitative results into the discussion. 
 
The section does not address the potential limitations in generalizing findings to broader populations, such as non-student groups or individuals from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Explicit acknowledgement of these constraints would improve the study's validity.

Response: We have now addressed this in the limitations. 
 
While the section briefly discusses the role of mindfulness and nature immersion, it does not delve into the mechanisms by which these components led to the observed outcomes. A more detailed explanation of how these interventions affect cognitive and emotional processes would enhance the theoretical contribution.

Response: We have now addressed this in the introduction. 
 
The discussion references positive feedback from teachers but does not address potential biases inherent in anecdotal reports from instructors. Discussing whether and how these observations were systematically evaluated would be valuable.

Response:  We now describe that we did not systematically collect instructor reports, as a limitation. 
 
While the primary outcomes are well-addressed, secondary outcomes such as altruism, community belonging, and climate hope are briefly mentioned. Expanding on these aspects would provide a more comprehensive picture of the intervention's impact.

Response; We feel for this pilot, the emphasis of the paper is best spent on the primary outcomes, because we included so many secondary outcomes we did not have the scope to cover each in depth. 
 
The discussion does not critically engage with possible shortcomings or unexpected findings. For instance, were there any challenges in implementing the course or achieving uniform results across campuses? Including this reflection would add rigor and balance to the discussion.

Response:  Per our response above, we have now included the limitation of measuring adherence across campuses.  However, we now describe how the weekly all campus teacher meetings helped promote a common knowledge base and teacher support network. In addition, we have now added: 

The addition of mindfulness teachers to each class required financial support not typical in an academic class for credit. Training of faculty in mindfulness could be a reasonable long term investment and is needed given the ongoing crisis. 
 
Conclusions
 
While the conclusion celebrates the intervention's success, it lacks critical reflection on challenges encountered during the study, such as variability in implementation across campuses or differences in student engagement. Including this reflection would provide a more balanced perspective.  The conclusion makes optimistic claims about the intervention's promise without adequately addressing the generalizability of the findings to other populations or settings. Including cautionary statements about the study's limitations would enhance the section's rigor.

Response: We now have an extensive section on limitations and mention some of these again in the conclusion as well: 

It was challenging to implement a common curriculum across 8 different universities, but the weekly teacher meetings made this both feasible and rewarding.  Most campuses had similar demographics, and extension to other populations will require modifications, as described in limitations above. This initial pilot study, while successful, does not address how generalizable findings are to other student populations. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reviewer Marija Bratić

Manuscript ID: sustainability 3439839

The paper titled "Outcomes of a Novel Experiential Psychosocial Climate Resilience Course for Young Adults" is skillfully written and provides a clear overview of the literature related to the research. While it examines a phenomenon that has methodologically evolved through various phases in the development of tourism and the evaluation of its economic impacts, the paper significantly enriches the literature review. The data used in the analysis were collected from relevant organizations. The paper offers valuable insights and has the potential to make a significant contribution to this field. I recommend it be accepted with revisions as noted in the comments to the authors.

Abstract

In a few sentences Explain the methodological details and criteria of sample selection, which scale was used to collect data, how it came from 190 students to 150 who showed a significant reduction in climate stress..

 

INTRODUCTION

Insufficiently focused introduction:

Although the introduction sets out the importance of the topic of climate change and mental health, a more precise definition of the problem is lacking. For example, the introduction should highlight more clearly why climate anxiety is a specific challenge for young people and how it differs from other forms of anxiety.

Recommendation: Add a clear formulation of the research problem and a more precise review of the literature related to climate resilience among young people.

 

Incomplete citation of relevant sources:

In the section on existing interventions for climate stress, the author draws on several references, but does not provide sufficient detail on their results, geographic context, or limitations.

Recommendation: Include more relevant studies that provide quantitative or qualitative data on the success of interventions and explicitly highlight their importance for the development of this course.

 

Weak connection with research objectives:

Course objectives and basic assumptions are not clearly connected to existing research and theoretical foundations.

Recommendation: Explain how the course fills a gap in the literature and to what extent it responds to needs identified in previous studies.For example on lines 38 to 46 only 1 reference is cited. You should really include more references that dealt with similar or the same topic.

 

Materials and Methods

The text states that 190 students attended the course across eight different campuses, but it does not specify how the students were selected. Was the sample random, or was recruitment targeted at specific groups?

The qualitative analysis is overly concise. The description of the thematic analysis lacks sufficient detail. It is unclear how the students' responses were coded and how the final themes were developed.

Although protests were identified as a potential factor that could have influenced the results, there is no in-depth analysis of their impact on the primary or secondary outcomes.
Recommendation: Consider including this factor as a covariate in the statistical analyses or conducting a deeper qualitative investigation of its impact. This would be more appropriate to place at the end, after the conclusion, as part of the study's limitations.

It is not clear how the instructors were trained or how their beliefs and skills were assessed. Furthermore, it is not mentioned whether there were any differences in the implementation of the course across the campuses.

 

RESULTS

If Notes and an explanation for the standard deviation have already been added to all the tables, then I should have added a note for the p-value (which is its limit value), for F, for Hedge's g...that is, for all the variables that are mentioned.

Details of the sample and recruitment of participants

 

A clearer explanation of how the participants were recruited and what criteria were used for their selection is missing. This is particularly important for understanding the representativeness of the sample and potential limitations.

It should be further explained why the majority of participants are from a certain demographic group (eg, Asian, White, and Hispanic female students) and how this may affect the generalizability of the findings.

Elaboration in the field of primary and secondary results

 

More context needs to be provided on the instruments used to measure primary and secondary outcomes (eg, DASS scales, C-AAQ).

The analysis of effects could be more detailed, including a discussion of the practical significance of the results, not just their statistical significance. For example, changes in climate distress or collective efficacy should be further explained in terms of how these changes may contribute to social action or individual well-being.

Details of the interview data analysis process are missing.

Adding examples of interview quotes would make it easier for readers to gain insight into the qualitative findings.

In the section on primary and secondary results, the interpretation of the findings is relatively tight. More detail needs to be included on how changes in different variables are related to the participant's experience during the course.

More attention should be paid to investigating gender differences or other potential moderators in the analyses.

 

Discussion, Conclusions

The discussion and conclusion are kind of vague. There should be more discussion in the discussion section about the obtained results, why these results were reached, what they point to, how they should be interpreted for future generations who may be more anxious about climate change. also in the discussion, you should connect the results obtained in this study with similar or the same research that was conducted among young people in other states of the USA, not only in California, or Europe or Asia, and then compare how young people deal with climate change and how it affects them on their quality of life. It would be very good to compare the results from several parts of the world. When the discussion is expanded, then modify and expand the conclusion.

Author Response

Reviewer 2   Abstract In a few sentences explain the methodological details and criteria of sample selection, which scale was used to collect data, how it came from 190 students to 150 who showed a significant reduction in climate stress.   Thank you for this comment.  We modified the Abstract to address your suggested edits.  We listed the primary DVs assessed, but do not have space to list the specific self-report scales used in the abstract itself.     INTRODUCTION Insufficiently focused introduction: Although the introduction sets out the importance of the topic of climate change and mental health, a more precise definition of the problem is lacking. For example, the introduction should highlight more clearly why climate anxiety is a specific challenge for young people and how it differs from other forms of anxiety. Recommendation: Add a clear formulation of the research problem and a more precise review of the literature related to climate resilience among young people.   We responded to your comment by adding the following text in the Introduction to make clear the specific challenge facing young adults in lines 74 to 82.   Anthropogenic climate and ecosystem changes are challenging the well-being of all living beings. There is increasing evidence that younger adults are especially threatened by the impact of climate change , with the Gen Z/Millennial groups reporting higher rates of climate change related psychological distress than all other age groups. Young adults are still developing coping skills, and have more than twice the rate of anxiety symptoms than older adults  (Terilizzi, 2024). Their lives will be more impacted by climate change, and in a recent survey of young adults, a majority report the future is frightening (76%), and climate change will impact their future plans (63%) (Lewandowski, 2024).       In line 88 to 92, we specify that:   climate distress interventions focused on teaching coping skills have improved mental health outcomes in adults.[1] However, there are no longitudinal quantitative studies of in-person climate resilience training in university students.    The specific research questions are now elucidated in a separate section on line 213 to 223.   The current study For primary outcomes, we expected from pre- to post-CR course significant decreases in climate distress, climate anxiety related cognitive and functional impairment, depression, anxiety and stress (Hypothesis 1: climate-related psychological functioning), along with significant increases in individual and collective self-efficacy (Hypothesis 2: climate self-confidence).  For secondary outcomes, we also expected improvements in climate engagement, nature connectedness, hope and hopelessness, and loneliness and belonging.  In an exploratory analysis in a subset of participants, we examined whether CR course related improvements were sustained (i.e., no significant decrease) in the primary outcome variables from post-CR course to 5-months follow-up assessment.    Incomplete citation of relevant sources: In the section on existing interventions for climate stress, the author draws on several references, but does not provide sufficient detail on their results, geographic context, or limitations. Recommendation: Include more relevant studies that provide quantitative or qualitative data on the success of interventions and explicitly highlight their importance for the development of this course.   In response to your comment, at present, this is the only review we have found that address psychosocial interventions for mental health issues related to climate change.    Xue S, Massazza A, Akhter-Khan SC, Wray B, Husain MI, Lawrance EL. Mental health and psychosocial interventions in the context of climate change: a scoping review. Npj Ment Health Res. 2024;3:10. doi: 10.1038/s44184-024-00054-1   There is another review that focuses on older adults which is not relevant to young adults, per se.   Nadia Waheed Elzohairy, Nawara Khirallah Abd El Fatah, Mahmoud Abdelwahab Khedr, Effectiveness of psycho-educational program on climate change distress and risk perception among older adults, Geriatric Nursing, 55, 2024, 35-43, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2023.10.017.   Weak connection with research objectives: Course objectives and basic assumptions are not clearly connected to existing research and theoretical foundations. Recommendation: Explain how the course fills a gap in the literature and to what extent it responds to needs identified in previous studies. For example on lines 38 to 46 only 1 reference is cited. You should really include more references that dealt with similar or the same topic.   Thank you for this comment. In the introduction, we have added sections described in pages 7 to 9.  “Theory of Change”, “Theoretical underpinnings”, and “ Linking CR course components to primary outcomes”, which make the specific link between the components of the climate resilience course and measured outcomes.     Materials and Methods The text states that 190 students attended the course across eight different campuses, but it does not specify how the students were selected. Was the sample random, or was recruitment targeted at specific groups?   The students self-selected to take the elective course. The course was open to any undergraduate or graduate student.   The qualitative analysis is overly concise. The description of the thematic analysis lacks sufficient detail. It is unclear how the students' responses were coded and how the final themes were developed.   Response:  We now include a supplemental table of the methods and the data (extracted responses).   (Need to download this and format it well and submit it as an appendix) https://docs.google.com/document/d/13O55EHBR70nILqBP9ZprHUdZQkf-KKZHP2k6yNpJPnM/edit?usp=sharing     Although protests were identified as a potential factor that could have influenced the results, there is no in-depth analysis of their impact on the primary or secondary outcomes. Recommendation: Consider including this factor as a covariate in the statistical analyses or conducting a deeper qualitative investigation of its impact. This would be more appropriate to place at the end, after the conclusion, as part of the study's limitations.   Response: The first question regarding political unrest on campuses during Spring 20204 was: Has the campus climate this quarter (e.g., campus protests, campus actions) in any way negatively affected your well-being or mental health?” on a Likert scale from 1, not at all, to 4, extreme.    Now in Lines 401 to 407 we report:    Effect of campus political climate on outcomes  Approximately 29% of respondents reported that the campus protests were associated with moderate-to-extreme negative effects on their well-being. There was an association between greater negative effects and increases in pre-to-post-course anxiety symptoms, r(114)=.25, p=.007; there were no other significant associations. For the overall impact of campus protests, 52.8% indicated a negative effect, while 47.2% reported a positive effect.   We measured the negative effects of the campus political climate only at post-course (not at baseline) and thus we can not use this measure as a moderator of the baseline to post-course change.  Furthermore, the second question regarding the overall impact of the campus protests was split nearly 50-50 such that half the students considered the protests as having positive effects, while the other half regarded the protests as having negative effects.  We asked these two questions to probe the effects of the socio-political contexts that were erupting to varying degrees on each of the 8 UC campuses.  In future assessments, we will measure the emotional impact of socio-political contextual factors at baseline and again at post-course assessments.      It is not clear how the instructors were trained or how their beliefs and skills were assessed. Furthermore, it is not mentioned whether there were any differences in the implementation of the course across the campuses.   Response:  Thus, there were 12 teacher training sessions before and during leading the course during which we discussed in detail the syllabus, how to guide the experiential exercises, how to lead small discussion groups, and how to structure and facilitate the group climate projects. The team teaching approach between UC faculty and meditation instructors was vital for securing expertise and perspectives on each team of instructors.     We have described on page 12:   We developed a cohesive group of expert facilitators that supported one another and provided training in skills necessary for the course, including group facilitation for highly sensitive topics. In keeping with this aim, we organized twelve teacher support and development meetings before and during the course. The UC faculty were experienced instructors for many years already, and the meditation instructors were certified in mindfulness with many years of teaching experience, particularly for young adults.    RESULTS If Notes and an explanation for the standard deviation have already been added to all the tables, then I should have added a note for the p-value (which is its limit value), for F, for Hedge's g...that is, for all the variables that are mentioned.   Response: We added under the Tables: Bonferroni corrected p-value for statistical significance is p<.0125.      Details of the sample and recruitment of participants.  A clearer explanation of how the participants were recruited and what criteria were used for their selection is missing. This is particularly important for understanding the representativeness of the sample and potential limitations.   Response: Details of the sample are presented in Table 1 Participant demographics and lines 348 to 353.  The CR course was offered as an elective course for pass/fail at each campus. Students decided whether to sign up for the CR course.  There was no screening out of students before they enrolled in the CR course. The course was open to all undergraduate and graduate students. There were no prerequisites.   With regard to recruitment, as stated on page 11:   Students were informed of the class CR course via listservs, newspaper articles, papers, online course announcements, academic advisors and word of mouth. There were no exclusion criteria. Approximately 190 students enrolled in the 10-week climate resilience elective course during the Spring 2024 quarter at 8 University of California (UC) campuses.     It should be further explained why the majority of participants are from a certain demographic group (e.g., Asian, White, and Hispanic female students) and how this may affect the generalizability of the findings.   The diversity of racial and ethnic identities is:   59 Asian (39.6%) 33 White (22.1%) 29 Hispanic/Latinx (19.5%) 21 Mixed (14.1%) 5 Black (3.4%) 1 American Indian/Alaska Native (0.7%) 1 Asian Native Hawaiian (0.7%)   The range of ethnicities is similar to the makeup of students in the University of California (UC) system's fall 2024 class, with Asian American students being the largest group at 36.3%, followed by Latino students at 26.7%, and White students at 19.8%, with African American students representing 6.9%.    Elaboration in the field of primary and secondary results  More context needs to be provided on the instruments used to measure primary and secondary outcomes (e.g., DASS scales, C-AAQ).   The AAQ, CCAS, and DASS are very well established and psychometrically validated scales that have been used in many studies. The four facets of climate self-efficacy questions were single-item measures created in our research team.    The analysis of effects could be more detailed, including a discussion of the practical significance of the results, not just their statistical significance. For example, changes in climate distress or collective efficacy should be further explained in terms of how these changes may contribute to social action or individual well-being.   This was a pilot study and was not designed to test whether changes in climate distress predict climate action or individual well-being.  This would require experimental manipulation of climate distress as an IV to examine its effects on subsequently assessed climate action and well-being.      Details of the interview data analysis process are missing. Adding examples of interview quotes would make it easier for readers to gain insight into the qualitative findings.   Examples of interview quotes for each of the identified themes are presented in the Discussion section and we have now provided all quotes in the supplemental material, as we described above.    In the section on primary and secondary results, the interpretation of the findings is relatively tight. More detail needs to be included on how changes in different variables are related to the participant's experience during the course.   We make an attempt to not interpret results in the Results section. We only present the empirical findings. Given that we only interviewed a very small sample of students only after completing the course, we avoid making comments on generalizing across all the student experiences during the course.  However,  the quotes help provide some examples to the constructs that we measured quantitatively with standardized scales.     More attention should be paid to investigating gender differences or other potential moderators in the analyses.   Response: We tested and found no male versus female differences in any of our analyses as stated in lines 375 to 377:   Gender effects. Including male vs female as a covariate in the above analyses revealed no moderation by gender for any of the primary outcomes, all ts<1.85, ps>.17.    Discussion, Conclusions   The discussion and conclusion are kind of vague. There should be more discussion in the discussion section about the obtained results, why these results were reached, what they point to, how they should be interpreted for future generations who may be more anxious about climate change. also in the discussion, you should connect the results obtained in this study with similar or the same research that was conducted among young people in other states of the USA, not only in California, or Europe or Asia, and then compare how young people deal with climate change and how it affects them on their quality of life. It would be very good to compare the results from several parts of the world. When the discussion is expanded, then modify and expand the conclusion.   There are no published longitudinal studies of the effects of meditation-based climate resilience courses in university settings that match what we offered to the UC students. Hence we can not compare our findings to other studies.  Also, this is a pilot study with a relatively small sample (150) with no control group.  We are conducting a second round of data collection in our second iteration of the climate resilience course now across all 10 UC campuses with the addition of a control arm that will help generate more reliable estimates of change.  We are not yet in a position to interpret the result for future generations.  The pilot study established feasibility and a hint of what might change with this type of university based climate resilience course.  We need more data from larger samples and a comparison or control group to make stronger inferences.   

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No doubt, the present work is an interesting and meaningful research, and the authors try to explore the latent associations between climate factors and mental health for young adults, and then several vital findings can be also found from this study. But meanwthile, some places should be intensified by authors before considerring the acceptance of this work, and the specifical detalis have been listed as follows, and thank you!

1. The title is so simple and it should be revised better.

2. Tiral registration must be moved to the section of materials and methods.

3. The introduction should be further intensified and improved, and more relevant references can be also cited to interpret the research background of the present work. And, a potential research question or hypothesis has been essentially to pinted out here.

4. The section of 2.5 statistical analysis should move to the end of materials and methods. 

5. The section of discussion should be further strengthened, and especially the significant experimental results, should be also sifficiently explained and discussed.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I advise the auqlity of English language could be improved to more clearly express the present research.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

No doubt, the present work is an interesting and meaningful research, and the authors try to explore the latent associations between climate factors and mental health for young adults, and then several vital findings can be also found from this study. But meanwhile, some places should be intensified by authors before considering the acceptance of this work, and the specifical details have been listed as follows, and thank you!

1. The title is so simple and it should be revised better.

Response: we changed the title to:
Effects of a novel psychosocial climate resilience course on climate distress, self-efficacy and mental health in young adults

2. Trial registration must be moved to the section of materials and methods.

We have moved it.

3. The introduction should be further intensified and improved, and more relevant references can be also cited to interpret the research background of the present work. And, a potential research question or hypothesis has been essentially to pointed out here.

As described in response to similar comments from Reviewer 1, the introduction has been expanded and refined significantly, and we have specific hypotheses.

4. The section of 2.5 statistical analysis should move to the end of materials and methods.
 
The statistical analysis comes immediately after describing the measures used in the quantitative part of the study. It is followed by a description of the qualitative data collection and analysis. 

5. The section of discussion should be further strengthened, and especially the significant experimental results, should be also sufficiently explained and discussed.

As you suggested, we have expanded the discussion section.