RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 OP23 Climate change worry and risk of depression and anxiety: a longitudinal study across 11 European countries JF Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health JO J Epidemiol Community Health FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd SP A11 OP A11 DO 10.1136/jech-2024-SSMabstracts.23 VO 78 IS Suppl 1 A1 Collery, A A1 Niedzwiedz, C YR 2024 UL http://jech.bmj.com/content/78/Suppl_1/A11.2.abstract AB Background Climate change is the biggest global health threat today and can affect people’s mental and physical health both directly and indirectly. A potentially important indirect effect of climate change is the rising phenomenon of ‘eco-anxiety’ or climate change worry. Very few studies have investigated whether it is related to poor mental health and these have been limited to cross-sectional, single-country studies with non-representative samples. We examined climate change worry and its association with depression and anxiety across Europe and also assessed which countries had the strongest associations.Methods We used data from the 10th European Social Survey (2020-22), which recruited individuals aged 15+ years, and subsequent follow-up (2021-23) CROss-National Online Survey-2 (CRONOS), conducted in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia. Depression was assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-8) and anxiety using Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7). The relationship between climate change worry (not at all worried, not very worried, somewhat worried, versus very worried or extremely worried) and risk of depression and anxiety was explored using logistic regression models, first adjusting for country and then stratifying by country. Models also adjusted for age, gender, migrant status, living in rural or urban area, education and income level and were weighted to adjust for non-response.Results The sample included 5,155 individuals (50.5% female). The countries with the highest prevalence of climate change worry were Portugal (63.7%), followed by Austria (53.2%) and Slovenia (51.3%), (chi-squared test p-value <0.001). Women were more likely to be worried about climate change. Climate change worry was associated with increased risk of anxiety (OR: 1.38, 95% CI: 1.13,1.68, p=0.002), but not depression (OR: 1.10, 95% CI: 0.94,1.29, p=0.218) in the pooled analyses across all countries. When stratified by country, climate change worry was associated with depression in Austria (OR: 1.82, 95% CI 1.02, 3.25) and Belgium (OR: 1.69, 95% CI: 1.04, 2.76), and associated with anxiety in Slovenia (OR: 2.00, 95% CI: 1.18, 3.39) and Italy (OR: 2.82, 95% CI: 1.00, 7.95).Conclusion This study highlights the emerging need for strategies to cope with eco-anxiety, a relatively new concept which does not fit into the traditional anxiety model. Further research is needed to design policy and interventions to support mental health in the context of climate change. Key limitations of the study include the small sample sizes once analyses were stratified by country and follow-up using online surveys.