In college my oldest son volunteered as a Big Brother and taught computer science at local elementary and middle schools. After graduating, he said his time with those young students was one of the most rewarding parts of his college experience. According to emerging research, it might also have improved his mental health. There is already considerable evidence from studies with adults that volunteering—doing something for someone else or for one’s community—benefits a person’s physical and mental health and improves overall well-being. Researchers have found that the sense of mattering to those around you that volunteering provides is one important reason it is associated with psychological well-being.
Now scientists are finding similar links to both physical and mental health in children and adolescents. An early experiment found that 10th graders who volunteered in an elementary school for two months showed fewer signs of harmful inflammation and lower levels of obesity compared with students who didn’t volunteer. A 2023 analysis found that among more than 50,000 children and adolescents in the National Survey of Children’s Health, young people who had participated in community service or had volunteered over the previous 12 months were more likely to be in very good or excellent health and stayed calm and in control when faced with challenges, and the adolescents were less likely to be anxious, among other benefits. This improvement was in comparison with young people who did not volunteer.
Granted, those findings are only correlations. “It could be that the children who were volunteering were already in great health,” says study co-leader Kevin Lanza, who is an environmental health scientist at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health.
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But because of an alarming rise in mental health issues among young people, Lanza and others believe this early evidence is promising enough to pursue. A 2021 advisory from U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned that the proportion of young people reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness had increased by 40 percent over the previous decade, starting even before the pandemic. The number of high school students seriously considering a suicide attempt rose by 36 percent. In the first years of the pandemic, the percentage of young people with depressive and anxiety symptoms doubled. There are multiple possible causes in addition to the pandemic, experts say, including the polarized political environment, anxiety over climate change, the effects of social media use and adverse personal circumstances.
When looking for ways to counter these problems, researchers point to the importance of “contribution”—providing support or resources to others or helping to achieve a shared goal—as an essential piece of social and emotional development for adolescents. Young people have a developmental need to connect and belong. “Part of the exploration of adolescence and young adulthood is figuring out where you can be needed and useful—arguably core aspects of our mental health,” says developmental psychologist Andrew Fuligni, co-executive director of the Center for the Developing Adolescent at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Volunteering is one good way young people can contribute. The importance of mattering to others and to the larger world “translates really well to the needs of adolescents to have a meaningful role to play in their community,” says developmental psychologist Parissa Ballard of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. In a small 2022 pilot study, Ballard and her colleagues tested volunteering as an intervention for nine 14- to 20-year-olds who had been recently diagnosed with mild to moderate depression or anxiety and were recruited through their clinicians. After 30 hours of volunteer work at animal shelters, food banks, and other community organizations, the average reduction in depressive symptoms among participants was 19 percent.
Everyone in the study enjoyed the work and reported a sense of pride and accomplishment. “Young people who were struggling with anxiety said that they were pretty anxious before doing it but then felt so much better after,” Ballard says. Although volunteering should not replace mental health treatment, she says, it could help in conjunction with other forms of therapy. She is pursuing that hypothesis in a larger study.
What accounts for the benefits? Helping others improves mood and raises self-esteem. It provides fertile ground for building social connections. It also shifts people’s focus away from negative things and can change how they see themselves. Many teens say they don’t feel important, Ballard says. “Volunteering can give people a different sense of themselves, a sense of confidence and efficacy.” Lanza thinks of it as “a health pipeline.” He adds that “it equips you with certain types of skills that better control anxiety.”
There may be a potential downside to volunteering, however. Fuligni and his colleagues have found that young people’s mental health can suffer if they feel their contributions are devalued because of their gender, racial or ethnic identity. And if they feel like they are being forced to participate or are not doing much, the experience can be harmful, Ballard says. One report found that people who were required to volunteer when they were young were less likely to do such work when they were older. “Young people have to choose something that feels meaningful to them,” Ballard says. Adults can help by offering choices and by vetting volunteer opportunities to be sure that organizations are well run and equipped to offer a good experience.
When these situations are carefully thought out, volunteering doesn’t just help the volunteers. It also helps the people and communities on the receiving end. “Volunteering could be a win-win,” Lanza says.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.