A Social Ecological Approach to Thriving: How Stressful Environments Can Improve Resilience in Youth and Communities

Adversities are commonly associated with detrimental effects on human development and wellbeing. However, recent advancements in research suggest that living in a stressful environments can, under the right circumstances, improve resilience and thereby increase the ability of individuals and their communities to successfully handle and live with adversity (i.e., thriving). In turn, this should result in a healthy wellbeing throughout life for the affected people. This process is hypothesized to be dependent on the resilience of different, potentially interdependent systems such as the individual, culture, economy and physical environment. However, it is so far unknown if and how these systems need to interact in order to initiate thriving in individuals and communities and if there exists a relation between the severity of adversity and its positive outcomes. A social ecological approach is necessary to understand how adversity could positively influence one of human life´s most sensitive periods for the influence of adversity, since it accounts for the interplay of different involved systems. The Resilient Youth in Stressful Environments (RYSE) project, which is being conducted by the Resilience Research Centre in Canada, explores thriving in N = 1200 youth and communities living in stressful environments impacted by oil and gas industries and their effects on the environment. To study thriving, the biological and psychological resilience of youth, the resilience of families, communities and the physical environment are examined as they interact and develop over a period of several years. RYSE uses a culturally sensitive mixed-methods longitudinal design for data assessment at four research sites in Canada and South Africa. The aim of the proposed project is to explore if thriving at the individual and community level depends on the interplay of different systems and to look for context-specific and global patterns of this process. This research is of utmost importance since worldwide illnesses caused by stress are on the rise, climate change brings new challenges for whole communities, and adversity will always be an inevitable part of human life. The results will help to understand that thriving depends on the interplay of different systems and to develop stress-prevention and resilience-enhancing programs for populations at risk and the public.