The air we breathe

Climate and health in the UK

The ways in which climate change can affect human health are many and varied. In the UK risks to human health are posed by heat stress and flooding, new and emerging pests and diseases, poor air quality, and reduced food security – with such impacts also increasing negative outcomes for mental health. But although the health and well being of vulnerable groups in the UK is a focus of public concern, the level of knowledge among the general population of the links between climate change and health is currently low.

Overcoming the ‘psychological distance’ of climate change – why images matter for communicating the health impacts of climate change

For a long time, one of the biggest barriers to public engagement with climate change was the so-called ‘psychological distance’ of the issue. With any number of more immediate concerns to focus on, it was easy for people in countries like the UK to perceive the risks of climate change as ‘not here, not now, and not likely to happen to me’.

Despite the sudden political salience of climate change, and daily news reports of a rapidly changing climate, the issue can still seem remote for people in countries like the UK where bushfires and hurricanes are not a familiar threat. Although climate change is getting ‘closer to home’, the UK public still tends to see major climate impacts as something for other people in other places to worry about.

As our Climate Visuals research has established, a more people-focused, relatable visual language for climate change can improve communication and engagement on this crucial issue. At the same time, many studies have pointed to the potential benefit of emphasising the health risks from climate impacts and the health benefits of low carbon policies. In recent years, health practitioners have played an increasingly central role in sounding the alarm about climate change, with initiatives like the Lancet Planetary Health Commission making clear that many of the impacts of climate change are experienced by individuals and communities as threats to their physical and mental health.

7 principles for visual climate change communication

So can images of the health impacts of climate change – and low carbon measures that can create health benefits – bring climate change home for UK citizens?

Appendix – Methods (abridged)

• An online survey with qualitative, quantitative, and experimental components was conducted with UK participants, with data collection carried out in March 2019.
• 1004 participants were recruited with representative quota sampling for age, gender and ethnicity. 986 places were matched on 3 stratification factors (age, sex and ethnicity), and 18 places matched on 2 stratification factors (sex and ethnicity) = 99.6% sample accuracy. One participant was removed due to incomplete data.
• In order to test how public threat appraisals may differ in relation to different impact types, a selection of four impacts were chosen due to their salience within the UK and due to availability of images: (1) floods, (2) heat stress/heat exhaustion, (3) new and emerging infectious diseases and (4) air quality. All participants viewed text content relating to these four impacts, answering questions about the perceived severity of, and their sense of vulnerability towards, the impact.
• At the same time, an experimental aspect allowed the style of content to be varied as well. This meant participants were randomly split into groups where the content showed either: (a) people with neutral emotional expressions (b) people displaying clear negative emotion (c) no people or (d) a control condition, where only text relating to the impacts was displayed.
• In the survey there were 12 impact images (3 per impact type) and four solution images (showing: tree planting, cycling in a city, getting information from a GP and school strike demo). All selected photographs were either taken in the UK, or could reasonably be inferred as being within the UK. Impact images were rounded down from an initial shortlist of 60+  through a process of coding and review.
• Other survey questions included: willingness to carry out climate relevant actions, text responses towards the imagery and content, a forced choice task (where participants selected one of two random images placed side by side), and a ‘heatmap’ task, which required participants to click on the most attention-grabbing part of an image.
• Toward the end of the survey, participants also reviewed impact and solution imagery (four images for each, presented on separate pages) and answered questions about the images’ effectiveness at generating a sense of self-efficacy.

Contact details and further information

Climate Visuals is the world’s only evidence-based climate change photography programme. Drawing on international social research and a broad network of partners across the campaigning, photographic and media space, Climate Visuals is establishing a new best practice, centred around 7 core principles, to empower climate change visual communication and maximise engagement with the issue.

Further details of the survey design and analysis will become available as part of a more detailed forthcoming write up, and will also form part of the lead author’s PhD thesis. For further information about this study contact Niall McLoughlin – Associate, Climate Outreach & PhD Researcher, Department of Psychology, University of Bath: n.c.mcloughlin@bath.ac.uk. Niall’s PhD was funded through an ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) ‘Environment, Energy and Resilience’ pathway PhD scholarship, under the supervision of Dr Ian Walker (Psychology, University of Bath) and A/Prof Saffron O’Neill (Geography, University of Exeter).