What the evidence shows

This perspective piece argues that health professionals, who already occupy a position of public trust and communicate complex statistics regularly, have both the tools and the responsibility to communicate climate change health impacts more effectively. Ellen Peters and Renee Salas observe that roughly a third of Americans are functionally innumerate: raw statistics frequently fail to land as intended, regardless of how alarming the underlying data may be.

Drawing on behavioural science evidence about how people process numerical information, the authors propose four principles for translating climate health statistics into messages that genuinely inform and motivate: providing meaningful context (especially through comparison and local data); reducing cognitive burden (by doing the math for the audience and using consistent frames); adding human stories (to make abstract risks personally relevant, paired with statistical likelihood); and furnishing feasible solutions (because perceived efficacy is a prerequisite for action, and hopelessness shuts it down).

The piece is structured around the finding that 37% of heat-related deaths during warm months are attributable to human-induced climate change,  demonstrating step by step how each principle transforms a static statistic into a message that is comprehensible, emotionally resonant, and actionable.

Key Findings

• Effective communication must begin by defining what the audience needs to understand, then building the message backward from that goal, not simply reporting whatever data is available. 

• Contextualising statistics through comparison and local relevance substantially increases comprehension and emotional engagement. Reframing the static "37% of heat deaths attributable to climate change" and localising it to the reader's own city or state progressively increases its salience.

• Perceived efficacy is a necessary precondition for action. If people don’t believe that specific, available actions will make a difference, or don’t believe they personally can take those actions, they lose hope and disengage.

Stand out data points

• ~1 in 3 Americans are functionally innumerate — lacking the basic maths skills needed to make effective health decisions from the statistics they typically encounter. 

• Contextualising statistics through comparison and local relevance substantially increases comprehension and emotional engagement. Reframing the static "37% of heat deaths attributable to climate change" and localising it to the reader's own city or state progressively increases its salience.

• "Where once two people would have died from excessive heat, now three people die" — the concrete frequency translation of the 59% figure, demonstrating how a percentage can be converted into an imaginable scenario that activates emotional response and is accessible to innumerate audiences.

Examples of how Understories uses this research

• Clarity Provides a four-part operationalised framework for clear communication: meaningful context, reduced cognitive burden, stories + statistics, feasible solutions.

• Solution focus The piece argues solutions are structural, not optional. A message that communicates climate health risk without any solution pathway actively undermines motivation.

• Autonomy The goal-first design principle, the emphasis on transparency about uncertainty, and the insistence on pairing stories with statistical likelihood all serve informed decision-making rather than persuasion through selective presentation. The paper treats the audience as agents who deserve to understand — not targets to be moved. 

— non exhaustive.

Key quote

"People find it particularly easy to ignore health information that is unfamiliar and far from their own experiences."

© 2022 Massachusetts Medical Society — All rights reserved. 

Last update: 8 July 2026

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