Crisis support-seeking behavior and temperature in the United States: Is there an association in young adults and adolescents?

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2019-06, Vol.669, p.400-411
• Main Authors: Sugg, Margaret M., Dixon, P. Grady, Runkle, Jennifer D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Ambient temperature; Crisis events; Crisis Intervention - statistics & numerical data; Crisis Text Line; Environmental Exposure - statistics & numerical data; Extreme heat; Humans; Mental health; Mental Health - statistics & numerical data; Temperature; United States - epidemiology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.434

Mounting evidence demonstrates the relationship between high temperatures and adverse mental health outcomes. Yet, no study has examined the influence of temperature on crisis support-seeking behavior among youth in large urban areas. Crisis Text Line (CTL) is a text messaging service that provides crisis interventions for support-seeking individuals for a range of mental-health outcomes in the United States. We applied a distributed lag non-linear modeling technique to assess the short-term impacts of daily maximum and minimum temperature on crisis-related events in four metropolitan locations in the USA. There were multiple positive associations in three of the four study locations that demonstrate crisis help-seeking behavior increased during anomalously warm conditions. This study suggests that there is a significant association between high minimum or maximum temperatures and crisis help-seeking behaviors in young adults and adolescents in urban areas in the United States. The exposure lag-response association between minimum and maximum temperature and crisis support-seeking behavior relative to median temperature in Chicago, IL over a 7-day period (6-day lag), a study location with a strong temperature-crisis relationship at the highest temperatures. [Display omitted] •This study is the first to explore the relationship between temperature-crisis events.•Nonlinear J-shaped relationship between temperature and crisis text was observed.•Significant relationships between crisis events and temperature were found in 3 out of the 4 cities.•Crisis events peaked in the summer (Late July).