Exploring youth momentary well-being using Geographically-explicit Ecological Momentary Assessment

Background

Adolescence is a period of heightened emotional reactivity and vulnerability to mental health problems, during which well-being plays a central role in psychological adjustment. Beyond reflecting immediate experiences, momentary well-being has been linked to long-term outcomes such as depression and substance use. While social and geographic contexts are recognized determinants of adolescents’ mental health, their influence on momentary well-being remains unclear. We aimed to investigate these associations in a sample of French adolescents using real-time assessments.

Methods

Participants were adolescents from the EXIST cohort, who agreed to participate in the Geographically-explicit Ecological Momentary Assessment (GEMA) sub-study. Over 10 days, participants received two SMS prompts daily linked to a short questionnaire, including the EMoWI (Ecological Momentary Well-being Instrument). Geolocation was recorded at each questionnaire completion. We used mixed-effects linear regression models to assess the associations between momentary contextual factors and well-being.

Results

A total of 122 adolescents provided 1,236 observations. The median age was 13.4 years (IQR: 13.3-13.6). Being with friends or family was associated with higher momentary well-being compared to being alone, representing the largest observed effect size (adjusted Beta (95%CI) = 3.4 (1.0-5.9), and 3.1 (1.7-4.6), respectively). There was a trend suggestive of an association between momentary well-being and exposure to greenness within a 100m radius, estimated by satellite imagery. Girls and gender-diverse adolescents reported significantly lower levels of momentary well-being than boys.

Conclusions

Immediate social context seems critical in shaping adolescent momentary well-being. These findings emphasize the importance of fostering supportive social relationships and highlight the potential of GEMA to inform personalized, context-responsive mental health interventions in youth.

Key messages

• Adolescent well-being fluctuates with social and geographic features of their environment.

• Geographically-explicit Ecological Momentary Assessment can inform personalized and context-responsive mental health interventions.