Real, Urgent & Now: Communicating the health impacts of climate change

Nurses, doctors and other health professionals are the most trusted people in society to talk about the health impacts of climate change.

However, most health professionals are not trained on how to talk about climate change to their patients, clients, colleagues or the media – all audiences which would benefit greatly from their expertise and perspective.

Health professionals’ self-assessed knowledge about climate change is low, although their willingness to learn more is high. This project will capitalise on this opportunity, by working with health professionals and groups, to build their knowledge and capacity to respond to and effectively communicate the health impacts of climate change. 

This project aims to build capacity within the healthcare sector to understand and communicate the challenge and the opportunity that climate change presents for individual and public health. 

RUN is supported by the Lord Mayors Charitable Foundation for two years (2020-2021).

CAHA is working with partner organisations to survey health professionals to understand barriers and gaps that impact their ability to communicate effectively about climate change and health to a range of audiences. We will work with our project partners to develop and distribute communications materials on climate and health and bring health voices to the media to help inform the public and decision-makers. We are deeply grateful to our project partners for their participation:

We also thank our knowledge partners, who provide advice on communications materials, support program evaluation, and share research on climate and health communications to inform the project: