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The Climate-Health Communication Gap: Connecting the Dots to Drive Climate Health Action
Rory Smith1, Keenan Chen1, Daisy Winner1
1School of Public Health, Brown University.
Health Communication
|October 29, 2025
Summary
Communicating climate change health impacts online is rare, with most messages using fear tactics. More actionable, solution-oriented content is needed to effectively engage the public on climate and health.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Health
- Communication Science
- Digital Media Studies
Background:
- Effective communication of climate change health impacts is crucial for public engagement and climate action.
- Social media and online news are primary global information sources, but their use for climate-health messaging is understudied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the prevalence of climate-health messaging across major online platforms.
- To identify communication strategies employed in popular climate-health content.
- To assess the framing and audience engagement of online climate-health information.
Main Methods:
- A mixed-methods approach combining machine learning (support vector machine classifier) and content analysis.
- Analysis of 2.4 million English-language social media posts and news headlines related to climate change.
- Identification of climate-health content and examination of communication techniques in highly engaged posts.
Main Results:
- Only 3.1% of climate change content discussed health impacts, focusing on extreme heat, mental health, and diseases.
- Nearly 60% of popular climate-health posts utilized fear-based 'doom-and-gloom' messaging.
- Less than 15% offered personal stories or actionable solutions, and content engaging conservative audiences was scarce.
Conclusions:
- Significant opportunities exist to improve online climate-health communication.
- Developing targeted, solution-oriented messaging with diverse narratives can enhance public engagement.
- Current online communication strategies are suboptimal for mobilizing broad public action on climate change and health.
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