--- title: Volunteering May Boost Kids' Well-Being, Study Says description: Volunteering is associated with better mental and physical health among kids and adolescents, according to new research. canonical: https://time.com/6283458/volunteering-good-for-kids-health/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-05-30T17:09:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:06:03.860Z article:section: Health og:title: Volunteering May Boost Kids' Well-Being, Study Says og:description: It's associated with better mental and physical health. og:url: https://time.com/6283458/volunteering-good-for-kids-health/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f40fcb9146defd7/698a3d6f47ca38986e3bad14/kids-volunteering.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: Father and daughter planting potted plant at community garden og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Volunteering May Boost Kids' Well-Being, Study Says twitter:description: It's associated with better mental and physical health. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7f40fcb9146defd7/698a3d6f47ca38986e3bad14/kids-volunteering.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Volunteering May Boost Kids' Well-Being, Study Says > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=f40664f8-0849-4237-98df-8588035d3b54&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: A Skin Patch Shows Promise in Treating Kids' Peanut Allergies [Watch (HLS stream): A Skin Patch Shows Promise in Treating Kids' Peanut Allergies](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wbNFxHZx.m3u8) (2:13)  _Published 2023-05-15. It's associated with better mental and physical health._  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. May 30, 2023 5:09 PM UTC  African-American father and daughter planting potted plant at community garden African-American father and daughter planting potted plant at community garden Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. May 30, 2023 5:09 PM UTC Kids and teenagers who volunteer may be helping not only their communities, but also themselves, according to [research](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2805381) published May 30 in _JAMA Network Open._ Volunteering through school, a religious organization, or a community group is associated with better overall health and wellness among children and adolescents, the researchers found. Compared to kids who hadn’t participated in community service in the past year, those who had were 34% more likely to be in excellent or very good health, 66% more likely to be considered “flourishing” (a positive measure of overall well-being), and 35% less likely to have behavioral problems. Kids ages 12 and older who volunteered were also roughly 25% less likely to have anxiety than peers who didn’t, although that finding didn’t carry over to children younger than 12\. However, [anxiety was more prevalent](https://time.com/4547322/american-teens-anxious-depressed-overwhelmed/) among older kids: about 19% of kids 12 and older experienced anxiety, versus 11% of those younger than 12. --- ### More from TIME --- Those findings come from survey data provided by the parents of more than 50,000 U.S. kids ages 6 to 17, about half of whom reported that their child did some kind of volunteer work. Parents answered questions about their kids’ demographic characteristics, health, and community-service activity. That approach may have skewed the data somewhat, as a parent may not know if their child experiences anxiety or considers themselves to be flourishing. This type of data also can’t prove cause and effect, only uncover associations—so it’s not possible to say for sure that volunteering leads to better mental and physical health. It could be, for example, that people in good health are more likely to have the energy or desire to volunteer. **Read More**: [_Teen Girls Are Facing a Mental Health Epidemic. We’re Doing Nothing About It_](https://time.com/6255448/teen-girls-mental-health-epidemic-causes/) The researchers did, however, account for potentially influential factors like household income and [religious affiliation](https://time.com/5159848/do-religious-people-live-longer/). More than 80% of the included kids were from families living above the poverty line and in metropolitan areas, and about two-thirds were white. About a quarter of parents reported some kind of religious involvement. Despite the new study’s limitations, the data come at an important time for youth mental health. In recent years, rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal behavior have [risen significantly among young people](https://time.com/5943896/covid-19-teen-mental-health/). Recent federal data show that [more than 40% of high school students felt sad or hopeless](https://time.com/6255143/teen-girls-sadness-sexual-violence-cdc/) in 2021\. About 30% of female and 14% of male high schoolers [considered suicide](https://time.com/6275975/teenage-girls-suicidal-thinking-2021/) that year. Given those statistics, there’s a clear need for accessible and effective mental-health resources. Giving back to the community, it seems, may be one such tool—and this study isn’t the only one to reach that conclusion. Previous research has also found [links between volunteering and well-being](https://time.com/4443752/volunteering-mental-health/) among adults, perhaps because community service helps people feel a sense of purpose and connection to those around them. [Generosity has also been shown to boost happiness](https://time.com/4857777/generosity-happiness-brain/) and potentially even improve physical health and [longevity](https://healthland.time.com/2013/08/23/helping-others-helps-you-to-live-longer/), which suggests it’s a practice worth cultivating. ## Transcript For the last 22, probably 25 years, we've seen a remarkable uptick in the number of new cases of peanut allergy being diagnosed. The current prevalence is about 2% of US children, which is not an insignificant amount of this has been a growing public health problem. This paper is addressing an unmet need in very young children, children under the age of four. As a way to help potentially treat any peanut allergy that does develop, peanut is sprayed onto the technology and then the technology is applied like a Band-Aid onto the skin, and it works through sort of sweat and absorption. We have a therapy that can potentially increase the amount of peanut that it will take for your child to react and ideally decrease the severity of any reaction once they get to that point of of of lowering that risk. That can be worn daily and you'll never have to eat peanut to get that benefit. You're going from under well, under a single peanut, you know, fractions of a peanut up to that much. So before you have a reaction so that that's clinically very meaningful for for a patient and for parents. From when I started as an allergist in 2006, we are light years ahead of the game. Back then, we really had nothing that we could tell a parent other than you'll need to avoid this for life. You'll need to carry emergency medicine for life, and you need to be very, very careful to avoid environmental exposures, even unintended ones. Now I look at the same child that I might have counseled in 2006, and there is you know, there's there's approved therapies, there are therapies in the pipeline. The future for that child is much, much brighter. There are a number of actual choices that these children may have in their future and how they can choose to be treated if they would like to. This is going through the regulatory process and the companies in touch with with the FDA trying to figure out the next steps. 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