By Amy Crawford

The climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues that we humans have to deal with over the next 50-100 years. It is a complex, interconnected and emotive issue that is entangled with all aspects of life, including our health. For example, climate anxiety has risen in young people, on top of pre-existing mental health conditions.

My recently completed masters project looked at how the University of the West of England’s (UWE) Sustainability Team could encourage optimism in its students through trust and agency. The priority here for the team was to begin building a positive culture around climate change and furthering the engagement they had with their students. However, they needed to understand what the student’s wanted from them and how they could address that.

Findings

I conducted three focus groups, both in-person and online, with students of different genders, ethnicities and levels of education. We discussed topics around optimism (or lack of), trust and agency and the subsequent analysis produced some great findings. 

For example:

• Negative feelings dominated the perception participants had of climate change

• There was frustration at the focus on the individual within the climate crisis, rather than high-polluters, like the energy industry, and governments.

• Rather than just receiving messaging from the engagement team, students wanted more opportunities to make pro-environmental decisions on campus. For example increasing the amount of vegan alternatives in on-site cafes and improving recycling facilities.

The key overall finding was that the students wanted different things from the engagement team than they had been delivering so far. 

Organisations and institutions, like the UWE, have an incredible opportunity to foster communities and to engage their audiences with climate change, whilst also encouraging pro-environmental behaviour. 

How does this link to health communication?

Understanding your audience's needs are key to any effective engagement strategy. Make sure you take the time to gain a better idea of what is expected of you and what your audience feels they need from you.

Whilst the climate crisis may not feature heavily in your work, it is important that there is an awareness and appreciation for the impact it can have on people’s lives and their health. Feeling overwhelmed and pessimistic about the future is common and can be interlinked with other health issues.

Some key takeaways from this project which might benefit your health communication work when discussing climate change include:

• offering ideas or opportunities for positive actions 

• focussing on solution-orientated messaging 

• understanding what people are looking for from your platform with regards to climate change and delivering that 

• showing empathy and avoiding toxic positivity about concerns for the future.