Journal of Affective Disorders 205 (2016) 234238

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Affective Disorders

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jad

Research paper

Sunshine on my shoulders: Weather, pollution, and emotional distress

Mark E. Beecher a,n, Dennis Eggett b, Davey Erekson a, Lawrence B. Rees c, Jennie Bingham a,
Jared Klundt a, Russell J. Bailey a, Clark Ripplinger d, Jessica Kirchhoefer d,n, Robert Gibson e,
Derek Griner a, Jonathan C. Cox a, R.D. Boardman a
a

Counseling and Psychological Services, Brigham Young University, United States

Statistics, Brigham Young University, United States
c
Physics, Brigham Young University, United States
d
Counseling Psychology and Special Education, Brigham Young University, United States
e
Aurora Mental Health Center, Aurora, CO, United States
b

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 21 April 2016
Received in revised form
11 June 2016
Accepted 10 July 2016
Available online 16 July 2016

Background: Researchers have examined the relationship between mental health and weather/pollution
with mixed results. The current study aimed to examine a range of weather and atmospheric phenomena
and their association with time-bound mental health data.
Methods: Nineteen different weather/pollution variables were examined in connection with an archive
of self-reported mental health data for university students participating in mental health treatment
(n 16,452) using the Outcome Questionnaire 45.2 (OQ-45). Statistical approach involved randomly
selecting 500 subjects from the sample 1000 different times and testing each variable of interest using
mixed models analyses.
Results: Seasonal changes in sun time were found to best account for relationships between weather
variables and variability in mental health distress. Increased mental health distress was found during
periods of reduced sun time hours. A separate analysis examining subjects endorsement of a suicidality
item, though not statistically signicant, demonstrated a similar pattern. Initial results showed a relationship between pollution and changes in mental health distress; however, this was mediated by sun
time.
Limitations: This study examined a relatively homogenous, predominantly European American, and religious sample of college counseling clients from an area that is subject to inversions and is at a high
altitude and a latitude where sun time vacillates signicantly more than locations closer to the equator.
Conclusions: Seasonal increases in sun time were associated with decreased mental health distress. This
suggests the need for institutions and public health entities to plan for intervention and prevention
resources and strategies during periods of reduced sun time.
& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Weather
Pollution
Emotion
Mood
Season

1. Introduction
There is a common perception that weather can play a critical
part in the way a person feels at a given moment (Watson, 2000).
Common metaphors such as under the weather reect evidence
of the pervasiveness of this belief. The belief that weather inuences mood has also resulted in multiple research hypotheses
which have been well researched with varied results. For example,
Harmatz et al. (2000) found strong seasonal effects on levels of
depression, hostility, anger, irritability, and anxiety. Kmpfer and
n

Correspondence to: 1500 WSC Provo, UT 84602-7906.

E-mail addresses: mark_beecher@byu.edu,
beecherme@gmail.com (M.E. Beecher).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2016.07.021
0165-0327/& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mutz (2013) found that respondents surveyed on sunny days reported higher life satisfaction compared with those surveyed on
days with mixed or rather bad weather (p. 587). One study in
Helsinki, Finland found signicant correlations between atmospheric pressure and suicide attempts, especially for men (Hiltunen, 2012).
Conversely, Keller et al. (2005) found that neither temperature
nor pressure was directly related to mood, but rather moods improved with time spent outside on warm, high-pressure days.
Denissen et al. (2008) found no signicant main effects of temperature, wind power, sunlight, precipitation, air pressure, or
photoperiod on positive affect. They also found that increases in
temperature resulted in increased negative affect, but increases in
sunlight and wind power decreased negative affect.

M.E. Beecher et al. / Journal of Affective Disorders 205 (2016) 234238

Other studies exploring the relationship between weather and

mental health found no signicant effects overall. Traffanstedt
et al. (2016) found no correlation between sunlight, season, or
geographic latitude on depression scale scores. Clark and Watson
(1988) found that neither temperature-related complaints nor
actual weather were related to mood. Huibers et al. (2010) showed
that weather and sad mood or depression were not associated.
Watson (2000) learned that mood was not strongly nor consistently related to temperature, barometric pressure, or level of
sunshine. Deisenhammer (2003) also stated that due to the high
variance of change among methodological approaches, risk for
suicide in a population could not be identied by weather conditions based on the available information in the literature.
Researchers have also explored the relationship between Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and weather, with a focus on correlations among weather variables, treatment, and outcomes. The
American Psychological Association (2016) has asserted that lack
of exposure to the sun, especially during the winter season, impacts depressive symptoms. Current research has shown the positive effects that natural light, articial light, and blue light can
have on clients diagnosed with SAD (Dalgleish et al., 1996; Gordijn,
t Mannetje, and Meesters, 2012; Lam et al., 2006; Martiny et al.,
2004; Rastad, et al., 2008; Roecklein, Schumacher, Miller, and Ernecoff, 2012; Wesson and Levitt, 1998). These positive effects span
from overall quality of life to a reduction in depression symptoms
(Michalak et al., 2005; Rastad et al., 2008), and ndings from Levitt
et al. (2002) show that better outcomes are associated with more
exposure to light. Kadotani et al. (2014) found that there were
increases in railway suicide attempts after a few days with lower
levels of sunlight in Japan. While research ndings regarding
weather and its correlations to mental health are varied, it appears
that there is some basis for the idea that amount of sunlight correlates with mental health.
Examining the varied results of this body of literature shows
that there is still signicant work to be done to understand the
impact of meteorological phenomena on mental health. In the
current study the researchers used innovative methods to attempt
to clarify some of the confusion and contradiction. In previous
studies, weather has typically been analyzed only on a seasonal or
daily scale. In the current study the researchers examined both
weather and mental health variables much more precisely (often
down to the hour). The researchers also broadened the examination of weather variables to include multiple aspects of meteorological phenomena (dew point, wind-chill, rainfall, solar irradiance, wind speed, barometric pressure, temperature, and lunar
day), and pollution variables (PM2.5, PM10, ozone, and nitrogen
dioxide) as potential factors impacting mental health. In addition,
instead of using a sample from the general population, the researchers investigated a clinical population. This may help clarify
how meteorological phenomena impact persons already experiencing distress and possibly experiencing difculty with their
moods.
Rather than using a simple outcome, such as administration of
a mood measure (Clark and Watson, 1988), number of attempted
suicides (Kadotani et al., 2014), online diaries (Denissen et al.,
2008), or criteria for diagnosis (Huibers et al., 2010) as a dependent variable, mental health distress and treatment outcome were
assessed using repeated measures on the Outcome Questionnaire45.2 (OQ-45, a brief, validated outcome measure that examines
multiple aspects of psychological distress each time a client attends a mental health treatment session; Lambert et al., 2011). The
number of participants in this study was also signicantly larger
than most due to the already existing archival data set of mental
health variables. Meteorological phenomena data were obtained
from the six-year period that coincided with the archival data set.
The current study sought to answer the following questions:

235

1. In the available data, are there relationships between mental

health distress (both generally and specically related to suicidality) and weather/pollution variables?
2. What weather/pollution variables best correlate with changes
in mental health distress/suicidality?

2. Methods
2.1. Participants
Mental health distress data for this study came from a 6-year
period (from October 2008 through September 2014) of a deidentied, archival dataset continually collected by the large university counseling center at Brigham Young University. This university is located in Provo (Utah County), Utah. The latitude of the
university is 40.2497, the longitude is  111.6489, and the altitude
is 4630 feet. Demographically, the 16,452 university students
were, 55.4% female, 44.6% male, aged 1668 (M 23.14), and
identied as 84% Caucasian/White, 6.5% Hispanic, 4.2% Asian, 1%
Black, and 4.3% Other.
2.2. Measure
The OQ-45 (Lambert et al., 2004) is a 45-item, self-report
measure of psychological functioning. Items are measured on a
5 point Likert scale: 0 never, 1 rarely, 2 sometimes,
3 frequently, 4 almost always. The range of scores possible on
the OQ-45 is 0-180, with higher scores reecting greater distress.
The OQ-45 assesses three broad domains of client functioning:
(a) subjective discomfort, (b) interpersonal relationships, and
(c) social role performance. The OQ-45, which was normed on
local and national populations, clearly discriminates between
clinical and nonclinical samples (Lambert et al., 2004; Umphress
et al., 1997), and is currently available in 17 languages. Using formulas developed by Jacobson and Truax (1991), clinical and normative data for the OQ-45 were analyzed by Lambert et al. (2004)
to provide cutoff scores for the reliable change index (RCI; 14
points) and clinically signicant change (dysfunctional/functional
cutoff: 64/63). These formulas for cutoff scores and classications
for change are supported by multiple studies (Bauer et al., 2004;
Lunnen and Ogles, 1998) and provide consensus with other selfreport measures like the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck et al.,
1996) and the Symptom Checklist-90 (Derogatis, 1996).
2.3. Procedure
Mental health treatment sessions at the university Counseling
and Psychological Services center are offered free of charge and
without session limits to full-time students of the university. Clients are referred or self-referred for a wide range of presenting
concerns, the majority of which are adjustment, anxiety, or depression related, and are given the OQ-45 at each session to track
change in symptom distress. Although outcome measurement is a
part of routine practice at this center, clients are asked for permission for their anonymized data to be included in research as
part of the intake process; only consenting clients data were included and each client was given an ID number unique to the
dataset. The study was conducted in compliance with the university's Internal Review Board.
2.4. Environmental data
Weather data were gathered from the university Physics and
Astronomy Weather Station. Pollution data were downloaded from
the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) online database

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M.E. Beecher et al. / Journal of Affective Disorders 205 (2016) 234238

(2016). Weather and pollution data were selected that corresponded with the same six year period as the mental health data
mentioned above. Time intervals for the weather data were minute-by-minute. Minute-by-minute pollution data were not available, as the EPA provides hourly (O3, CO, NO2, & PM10) and 24-h
averages (PM 2.5 and PM10). For PM2.5 and PM10 the 24-hour
averages were used throughout the analysis.
2.5. Data Analysis
Because of the large sample, it was likely that relationships that
were practically unimportant would be identied as statistically
signicant. To ameliorate this problem, the researchers created
multiple small samples from the entire database. Each of these
samples consisted of 500 randomly chosen clients, with every
available OQ-45 score for the selected clients. The researchers
created 1000 samples of 500 clients each for every variable considered, creating distributions of p values for each variable.
All sampling and analyses were conducted in SAS, version 9.4.
Mixed models analyses were run for each of the samples using
PROC MIXED, and blocking on client ID. The distribution of p values for each variable was then used to determine the practical
signicance of that variable. The researchers used overall symptom distress (as measured by the OQ-45) and responses to item #8
on the OQ-45 (suicidal ideation) as dependent variables. An extensive list of independent variables included sun time (the hours
between sunrise and sunset), sunrise, sunset, lunar phase, rainfall,
wind speed, wind direction, wind chill, temperature, humidity,
atmospheric pressure, absolute pressure, ozone, irradiance (i.e.,
power per unit area received from the sun), dew point, carbon
monoxide, coarse particulate matter (PM10), ne particulate
matter (PM2.5), and nitrogen dioxide. Sunshine hours were not
available in the current dataset. Because values in the dataset for
ozone concentration all fell between 0.0 and 1.0 (therefore confounding the practical meaning of a one unit change in our analyses), the researchers used the standard deviation for all ozone
measurements over the time period (0.017) as the reference unit
for ozone in our mixed models.
In order to account for immediate and cumulative effects of
each independent variable, averages over one hour, four hours,
one day, and seven days were examined in each analysis (with the
exception of PM2.5 and PM10, for which only 24-h averages were
available, as well as sunrise, sunset, and sun time; these variables
were only calculated at one day and averaged over seven days).
After determining the most relevant variable related to OQ-45
scores using the method above, a second round of simulations was
performed. This second round was conducted to determine if any
variables were signicant when controlling for the most relevant
variable identied; in this round, therefore, two variables were
included in each analysis, the most relevant variable and each of
the other variables in turn.
When comparing the distribution of p values for each variable,
two indicators of statistical signicance were examined: rst, the
mean p value over the entire distribution; and second, the p value
that fell at the 50th percentile of the distribution of the p values
for that variable. If the mean p value or the 50th percentile p value
fell below 0.05, it is likely that the variable of interest was a signicant predictor of the dependent variable.

3. Results
In our rst round of analyses, 5 variables were identied that
had signicant mean p values and 12 variables that were signicant at the 50th percentile. Sun time, sunset, irradiance, and
ozone had statistically signicant, negative relationships with OQ-

Table 1
Mixed model analyses results for OQ-45 (Overall Score) and meteorological
variables.
Variable

Mean p
value

50th percentile p value Estimate SE

Suntime (hours; 1 d avg.)

Suntime (hours, 7 d avg.)
Sunset (hours, 1 d avg.)
Sunset (hours, 7 d avg.)
Sunrise (hours, 1 d avg.)
Sunrise (hours, 7 d avg.)
Irradiance (W/m2, 1 d avg.)
Irradiance (W/m2, 7 d avg.)
Ozone (1 h avg.)
Ozone (4 h avg.)
Ozone (1 d avg.)
Ozone (7 d avg.)

0.021n
0.037n
0.018n
0.033n
0.040n
0.061
0.165
0.124
0.129
0.133
0.083
0.080

o 0.001n
o 0.001n
o 0.001n
o 0.001n
o 0.001n
0.001n
0.038n
0.015n
0.035n
0.037n
0.013n
0.010n

 0.78
 0.72
 1.53
 1.40
1.36
1.23
 0.94
 1.43
 0.70
 0.71
 1.14
 1.47

0.27
0.29
0.54
0.57
0.54
0.55
0.59
0.88
0.35
0.35
0.48
0.64

Note: W/m2 Watts per square meter; SE standard error; A negative estimate
indicates a decrease in OQ-45 scores, and likewise a decrease in symptom distress.
The units for each variable are noted in parentheses. Ozone units were based on the
standard deviation for all ozone measurements over the time period studied
(0.017).
n

p o 0.05.

45 score, indicating that as each of these increased, OQ-45 scores

decreased. Accordingly, sunrise had a signicant positive relationship with OQ-45 score, indicating that as the sunrise became
later, OQ-45 scores tended to rise (see Table 1). As many of the
variables with the lowest p values appeared to be related to the
length of the day (sun time), it was inferred that sun time was the
most relevant variable. In the second round of analyses, each
variable failed to demonstrate signicance when sun time was
included in the analysis with the variable in question. In the mixed
model, the estimate for sun time over a single day was  0.013
(SE0.0045), indicating that with each minute change in sun time,
OQ-45 scores decreased by 0.013 points. Converting this estimate
to hours (i.e., 0.013  60), with each hour change in sun time,
OQ-45 scores decreased 0.78 points (SE 0.27). This effect was
similar (although redundant) in sunrise and sunset, where each
hour change in these variables was related to a 1.5 point decrease
in OQ-45 scores (and each half hour change would therefore be
related to a decrease of approximately 0.75 points). Applying this
estimate, the difference in OQ-45 scores between the day with the
most sun time and the day with the least sun time was approximately 4.5 points. Although not statistically signicant, similar
results were found with OQ-45 question #8, regarding suicidal
ideation. Sun time was identied with the lowest mean p value
(0.23) and 50th percentile p value (0.09), with an estimate of
 0.013 (SE 0.02).

4. Discussion
While many researchers have attempted to nd correlations
between meteorological phenomena and mental health, few studies have examined overall distress as measured by a mental
health treatment outcome measure to explore this relationship.
Because this study involved collecting data from a university
where the counseling center requires every client to complete the
OQ-45 before each session and where the physics department
collects detailed meteorological data (minute by minute since
February 19, 2000), the researchers were able to examine the relationship between measured client distress (including suicidal
ideation) and numerous meteorological variables (including multiple measures of weather and pollution) that were specically
tied to the location and time of survey administration. This gave
this study a signicant methodological advantage over previous

M.E. Beecher et al. / Journal of Affective Disorders 205 (2016) 234238

research that did not utilize the same level of measurement

specicity.
The primary nding of this study showed that there was a
signicant, negative correlation between sun time (the amount of
time between sunrise and sunset) and the OQ-45 total score. As
sun time decreased, overall symptom distress increased, as measured by the OQ-45 total score. Though not statistically signicant,
results on OQ-45 question #8 regarding suicidal ideation seemed
to follow a similar pattern. Based on these results claims cannot be
made about a relationship between weather/pollution and suicidal
ideation; however, this may warrant further investigation.
From the statistical analyses, it is clear that the amount of sun
time directly and strongly correlates with mental health, specically with overall symptom distress. Essentially, this indicates that
seasonal changes impact mental health. Many researchers have
examined SAD and have found evidence supporting seasonal effects on mental health (Dalgleish et al., 1996; Gordijn et al., 2012;
Lam et al., 2006; Levitt et al., 2002; Martiny et al., 2004; Michalak
et al., 2005; Rastad et al., 2008; Roecklein et al., 2012; Wesson and
Levitt, 1998). The current research adds further evidence to the
ndings in the broader literature that show seasonal changes, including sun time specically, impact mental well-being not only in
clients diagnosed with SAD, but more generally in all clients. These
ndings suggest the need for institutions and public health entities to plan for intervention and prevention resources and strategies during periods of reduced sun time.
While the researchers have utilized a novel approach to examine the correlation between meteorological phenomena and
mental health, the primary nding is not necessarily novel or
surprising based on previous research. However, what is possibly
surprising and novel is that no other weather or pollution variables (including dew point, wind-chill, rainfall, solar irradiance,
wind speed, barometric pressure, temperature, lunar day, PM2.5,
PM10, ozone, and NO2) were signicant predictors of mental wellbeing after accounting for sun time.
One way to interpret the nding that the other weather and
pollution variables did not have a signicant impact on mental
health is that people and clients are resilient and adaptive. While
multiple previous research studies have hypothesized that a relationship exists between weather, pollution, mental health, and
distress (Fritze et al., 2008; Demeneix, 2014), the current study
found no such relationship. With the exception of sun time, none
of the meteorological phenomena examined had a signicant effect on students self-reported levels of distress. Although it is
often assumed that outside elements can greatly affect mood or
affect, these results present the possibility that more credit needs
to be given to people's ability to cope and adapt.
Other studies that have looked at the relationship between
meteorological factors, and suicide specically, have contradictory
ndings. For example, many studies found suicide to be positively
correlated with temperature, humidity, and precipitation while
other studies found the opposite (Deisenhammer, 2003). One
possible explanation is that the methodology differs greatly from
study to study. Additionally, all studies measure suicide either by
attempted or completed suicide attempts with no research looking
at suicidal ideation. A limitation of these types of studies is the
argument that meteorological elements in this case could simply
correlate with how the weather affects accessibility to lethal
means or surveillance (Chew and McCleary, 1994), whereas measuring ideation ameliorates these limitations. Furthermore, these
previous studies have looked at weather on a daily, weekly,
monthly, or yearly basis as opposed to the hourly changes in
weather that occurred. Arguments in the literature state that even
on a daily basis much can occur, as precipitation at night probably
does not have an effect on a suicide earlier in the morning.
Additionally, measurements of weather in previous studies

237

were typically collected by regional weather centers, which suggests a large and potentially diverse weather area. This presents
limitations because it is difcult to know if the reported weather
represented the area in which the client data was collected. All
subjects in the current study attended the same university where
meteorological data was collected. Therefore, the researchers
made the reasonable assumption that subjects were spending
considerable time in the same general geographic area.
4.1. Limitations and future research
While the researchers were able to correct many limitations
from previous research in this study, there were still some limitations that could have impacted the ndings. The rst is that the
mountainous region where this study occurred has a history of
being subject to the inversion effect. Typically, temperatures decrease as altitude increases, but the inversion effect causes temperatures to increase with altitude which can increase pollution
levels. Because of this, pollution changes often follow seasonal
patterns, with inversions being more prevalent during winter
months. This could explain the nding that sun time best accounted for changes in mental health distress. In the future it
would be important to perform this study in an area that is not
subject to inversion effects, eliminating the possible confounds
this could create.
Previous research has found correlations between living at a
higher altitude and increased rates of suicide (Brenner et al., 2011;
Cheng, 2010). The current study only included clients living at a
high altitude, presenting the possible limitation that it cannot be
generalizable to populations living at lower altitudes.
Additionally, in the city where the current study was performed sun time vacillates more than in cities that are closer to the
equator, like Honolulu. Future studies comparing areas that are
closer to the equator to areas that are far from it could provide
more information on the effects of sun time. Since the geographic
area under study also receives roughly 17 in. less rain per year than
the US average and sits at an elevation of over three times the US
average (Sperling, 2016), these meteorological and regional differences could conceivably cause some limitations to the effectiveness of the study.
Lastly, the student population studied may be a source of potential limitation. The sample was collected from a relatively
homogeneous university that is composed of mostly European
American, religious students. The unique and homogeneous nature of the sampling group may not represent how people in other
areas may respond to the OQ-45 or to meteorological phenomena
and pollution.
It seems important to perform similar research in other locations to see if results are similar. Because it is unclear how sun
time may affect mental health distress and treatment outcome,
additional research is needed to explore sun time related variables,
such as supplemental vitamin D intake, amount of outdoor exercise, exposure to nature, tanning, etc.

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