Report · Feb 28, 2025
Climate Change in the American Mind: Public Perceptions of the Health Harms of Global Warming, Fall 2024
By Julia Fine, Joshua Ettinger, Emily Goddard, John Kotcher, Hilyatuz Zakiyyah, Yuan Yue, Jennifer Carman, Seth Rosenthal, Kathryn Thier, Teresa Myers, Marija Verner, Jennifer Marlon, Emily Richards, Matthew Goldberg, Anthony Leiserowitz and Edward Maibach
Filed under: Climate Impacts and Beliefs & Attitudes
2. Beliefs About Who is Most Likely to Experience Health Problems from Global Warming
2.1 About half of Americans think some groups or types of Americans are more likely than others to experience health problems from global warming.
About half of Americans (47%) understand that some groups or types of Americans are more likely than others to experience health problems related to global warming — an increase of 13 percentage points since the question was last asked in 2014.
2.2 The percentage of Americans who identify low-income people and people of color as likely to experience health problems from global warming has increased.
Survey participants who said that some groups are more likely than others to experience the health harms of global warming (refer to section 2.1) were then asked the open-ended question: “Which groups or types of Americans do you think are more likely than other Americans to experience health problems related to global warming?” The responses were categorized and analyzed (refer to data tables, p. 20, and category descriptions, p. 30).
Americans most commonly say that low-income people (18%, an increase of 12 percentage points since 2014), older adults (7%), people with health conditions (6%), and people of color (6%, +5 points), including Black, Latino, Indigenous and immigrant communities, are more likely than others to experience the health harms of global warming.
