Place‐based environmental distress and psychosocial profiles of adolescent mental health in transformed Colombian territories

Objectives This study aimed to identify psychosocial profiles among Colombian adolescents living in environmentally transformed territories and to examine whether solastalgia was associated with profile membership and territorial variation. Design A cross‐sectional, person‐centred analytical study was conducted with school‐attending adolescents from four Colombian contexts affected by urban construction‐related change, agricultural transformation, extractive activity, and Indigenous displacement. Methods The sample included 1064 adolescents. Four standardized domains were constructed: well‐being capacities, school health, symptom and clinical‐risk burden, and protective family‐system functioning. Solastalgia was introduced as an external predictor rather than as a profile indicator. Latent profile analysis identified psychosocial profiles, and multinomial models examined the association between solastalgia and profile membership. Territorial profile differences and BSS × territory patterns were examined descriptively. Results A five‐profile solution was retained: Contextually Flourishing, 25.7%; Supported Low‐Capacity, 18.0%; School‐Strained Resourced, 25.0%; Family‐Strained Distress, 27.0%; and Multisystem Vulnerability, 4.3%. Higher solastalgia was most clearly associated with Family‐Strained Distress relative to Contextually Flourishing, RRR = 1.25, 95% CI [1.05, 1.49], p = .011. Profile distribution differed by territory, χ 2 (12) = 437.64, p < .001, Cramér's V = .37, whereas territorial moderation remained exploratory because of sparse profile‐territory combinations. Conclusions Solastalgia was not a general marker of psychosocial risk. Its clinical significance was most evident when environmental suffering co‐occurred with elevated symptoms and weaker family‐system protection. Adolescent environmental distress should be assessed through ecological, person‐centred formulations that integrate symptoms, family containment, school experience, and preserved resources.