Public Perceptions About Climate Change and Health

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are known to cause climate change. These gases have increased on a global scale since 1990 largely due to human activities. Climate change has been linked to a higher prevalence of weather disasters including floods, hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, and dangerous heat levels. This poses health risks to plants, animals, and humans due to hunger, poor nutrition, poverty, displacement, pollution, and disease.

Numerous organizations around the world have raised awareness about climate change and created guidelines and goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; however, many of these goals have not been met. One of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals is to limit global temperature to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. To reach this goal, greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by 43% by the year 2030. Both in the United States and globally we are falling short, with only a 2.6% reduction projected.

One of the major barriers to reducing greenhouse emissions is the lack of public consensus regarding human influences on climate change. The issue is highly politicized in many countries and may be downplayed due to fear of economic repercussions of reducing emissions. Due partly to this lack of unifying public messages, people have varying opinions about whether climate change is truly a risk.

Public trust in science waned during and since the COVID-19 pandemic. As with climate change belief, trust in science differs based on individual and group factors such as age, education, race/ethnicity, income, and geographic region. Younger age, higher education levels, White or Asian race, higher income, and living in urban areas all correlate with higher trust in science. Lack of trust limits peoples’ willingness to believe scientific evidence and adhere to recommendations made by scientists. Improving public trust in science is important to enact policies that mitigate climate change and improve public health.

It is imperative to improve public engagement and trust in science so more effort can be made to address climate change.

My colleagues and I were interested in seeing what factors affect the belief that climate change can harm health, and how those who believe climate change harms health feel about information from scientists and health recommendations. In this study, published in the Journal of Health Communication, we used data from the Health Information National Trends Survey to answer the question: “How much do you think climate change will harm your health?” We assessed differences in climate change beliefs by demographics. We also looked at whether those who believe climate change will harm health trust information from science and health professionals.

We found demographic differences between those who believed climate change will harm health. Female compared to male, Hispanic compared to White, and college graduates compared to those with high school education or less were more likely to believe climate change will harm their health. Young adults (18 to 34 years old) had the highest odds of believing climate change will harm their health, and those age 50 to 64 and 75 or older were significantly less likely than young adults to believe climate change will harm their health.

We were interested in seeing whether those who believe in climate change risk also trust information from scientists and health recommendations from experts. We found that  those who believed climate change will harm their health a lot were more likely to trust information about cancer from scientists. There were no significant relationships between believing climate change will harm health and believing that health recommendations from experts conflict or change.

Our results highlight the importance of tailored messaging regarding climate change, science, and health information. Older adults, men, and those with lower educational attainment may benefit from learning climate information from sources that they already trust, like local or national news sources or television shows that are not specifically climate or science focused. Region-specific information about how climate change is affecting local weather events may help people perceive the information as relevant. This might include information about how heat waves and drought affect risk for wildfires or how warmer ocean temperatures impact storms in coastal regions. Scientists should work together with community leaders to communicate climate information in easy to understand, culturally, and locally appropriate ways to improve trust.

It is imperative to improve public engagement and trust in science so more effort can be made to address climate change. Lukewarm beliefs on the effects of climate change have consistently led to little personal and institutional behavior change, making reaching climate goals nearly impossible. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions requires significant efforts on individual, community, and national levels to prevent further negative impacts on human health.