Americans Have Become More Aware That Climate Change Is Harmful to Their Health, Survey Says

Over the last decade, people living in the United States have become more aware that the climate crisis is harming their health, according to a new survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University (GMU) Center for Climate Change Communication.

The findings are detailed in a report: Climate Change in the American Mind: Public Perceptions of the Health Harms of Global Warming, Fall 2024.

The nationally representative survey was conducted in December of last year and paints a picture of Americans’ perceptions of the health risks posed by various sources of energy and climate change.

Global heating is the source of many health problems in the U.S., including injuries and deaths caused by extreme weather, wildfires, heat waves, floods, increased air pollution and a wider geographic range for infectious diseases, the Executive Summary of the report said.

The harm that the climate crisis brings disproportionately impacts people of color, those with low incomes and those with health conditions, among others.

“The survey results reported here assess Americans’ awareness and understanding of the health harms of global warming; their beliefs about who should take action to protect people from these harms; and their trust in various sources of information about these harms. We compare many of the results with prior surveys conducted in 2014, 2018, and 2020,” the Executive Summary said.

Among the report’s key findings was that 39 percent of Americans believe global warming is harming the country’s health “a great deal” or “a moderate amount,” which is an increase of eight percent since 2014. In contrast, just 16 percent believe their personal health is being impacted negatively by global heating to the same extent.

Meanwhile, 47 percent of Americans know that some groups are more likely to experience health harms from global warming, which is a 13 point increase from 2014.

The survey’s principal investigator Edward Maibach said the results were fundamentally irreconcilable with actions taken by the Trump administration, reported Inside Climate News.

“If they were engaged in good governing, they would look at what [voters] care about and then try to build a consensus about what they’re doing, and that doesn’t seem to be the way they’re governing,” said Maibach, who is director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at GMU.

According to the results of the survey, 65 percent of Americans believe coal is harmful to people’s health, while 38 percent think the same about natural gas — nine points higher than in 2018.

More than half of Americans — 53 percent — think nuclear energy is harmful to health, the same as in 2018.

Nearly 40 percent of those who participated in the survey believe federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Emergency Management Agency should take more steps to safeguard people from the health impacts of global warming.

Nearly a quarter of Americans believe health professionals like nurses and doctors should do more.

Maibach said the findings demonstrated that Americans have increased trust in researchers and scientists, which came as a surprise, Inside Climate News reported. He said the results overall showed an increasing awareness that could help strengthen efforts to combat global heating.

“The fact that we’re seeing such a strong uptick in public understanding that climate change is harming the health of Americans, we fundamentally are optimistic that that will build the public will for climate action,” Maibach said.

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