A young man stands amidst damage caused by Hurricane Maria. Source: Jean-Francois Manuel / Shutterstock.com, 2017.
A child born today will experience several times more climate-related disasters than someone born in 1960. Yet, most research on children, youth, and disasters still focuses on single events. Young people today are also living through rapid social change and upheaval.
Researchers often rely on public data to understand how extreme events and other forms of stress affect youth mental health, but access to this information is increasingly under threat. This missing data not only limits scientific insight, but also deepens age-, race-, and gender-based inequities by obscuring who is most at risk and where intervention is most needed.
Public Data: A Critical Resource
Government-funded public datasets play an important role in understanding youth mental health. Resources like the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS) and the National Health Interview Survey allow researchers to track population-level trends and link them to broader conditions, including disaster exposure. Studying the intersection of climate change, disasters, mental health, and equity requires sustained access to publicly available data.
But this access is increasingly uncertain as public datasets become subject to political interference. In the past year, the scientific community has lost access to over 3,000 government datasets. As the datasets disappear, so does the ability to track where risks are rising, which people and communities are most vulnerable, and where support systems are falling short.
Disasters and Youth Mental Health
Our research team at Boston College recently used public data to evaluate how multiple disaster exposures shape youth mental health across the United States. We combined five public datasets, creating a novel dataset that includes over 415,000 adolescents across 37 districts in 18 states. The sample was highly diverse. Nearly 80% of youth identified with a racial or ethnic group other than non-Hispanic White. Using the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster records, we calculated how many weather-related disasters occurred in each district during the two years before students participated in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillence System.
Bringing these datasets together allowed us to examine disaster impacts from a broader perspective than most single-event studies. Several patterns emerged. Young people living in districts with moderate disaster exposure—characterized as three recent disasters—reported higher rates of mental health distress compared to those in districts with fewer or more disasters. Importantly, this does not mean three disasters represent a universal threshold for risk. Several explanations may account for this pattern. One possibility is that communities with more frequent exposure to disasters have stronger systems of preparedness and response, while moderately exposed regions may not. But to understand whether this pattern holds, we need to see it replicated across different disaster types, regions, and timescales.
Identity and geography also shaped the findings. Black and Latino youth were more likely to live in districts with higher disaster exposure and greater underlying adversity, including poverty and community violence. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth faced similar vulnerabilities. The specific patterns varied, but the broader message was clear—the mental health consequences of disasters are not evenly distributed. This aligns with what educators and clinicians observe every day: young people with the greatest needs often live in places with the fewest resources.
The Importance and the Impacts of Missing Data
Understanding how mental health varies across populations is necessary for identifying effective interventions. The need for solutions is becoming even more urgent in the midst of the youth mental health crisis. Rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide are climbing. Exposure to disasters can intensify mental health challenges, especially for youth who are already struggling.
In January 2025, two of the datasets we relied on in our study—the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillence System and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s School Shooting Safety Compendium—were removed from public access. The decision was political, tied to pressure surrounding gender-identity questions and transparency in reporting firearm-related violence. Although the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillence System was restored, the school-shooting dataset remains offline.
The consequences of losing public datasets are profound. Without them, we cannot reliably track youth mental health or understand which groups are most harmed by disasters. We cannot document inequities if they remain hidden. And we cannot give communities, schools, and policymakers the evidence they need to act with moral and scientific authority.
Protecting public data is fundamentally an equity issue. Young people cannot be supported if their experiences are invisible. Disaster-related disparities cannot be addressed if they are not being measured. As climate-related disasters accelerate, the future of youth mental health depends on safeguarding the information that allows us to understand, prepare for, and respond with the urgency that this moment demands.
Alexa Riobueno-Naylor is a psychologist-in-training whose research has focused on supporting individuals, families, and communities affected by trauma, including disasters. Her dissertation in Counseling Psychology at Boston College examined how cumulative disaster exposures shape youth mental health. As a clinician, she currently provides evidence-based care to diverse children, adolescents, adults, and families in New York City.