We have discussed previously how an understanding of the health impact of climate change is an important aspect of the HIFA vision of meeting the reliable healthcare information needs of the public, health workers and policymakers. The current issue of The Lancet Planetary Health has an interesting and relevant paper.
CITATION: Public engagement with health and climate change around the world: a Google Trends analysis (Viewpoint)
Dasandi, Niheer et al.
The Lancet Planetary Health, 2025, Volume 9, Issue 3, e236 - e244
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(25)00029-4/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_email
SUMMARY: Despite growing recognition of the importance of people engaging with the health dimensions of climate change, we know surprisingly little about the levels of public engagement around the world. We address this knowledge gap by examining Google Trends data, using people's online information-seeking behaviour to shed light on global engagement with health and climate change between 2014 and 2023. We observe that over the past decade—and particularly since 2020—there has been growing public engagement via Google searches with health and climate change around the world. The increasing engagement with the intersection of health and climate change is largely distinct from engagement with either climate change or health separately. We observe that such engagement is highest in low-income and middle-income countries. There is also greater engagement with health and climate change than with other issues that intersect climate change—eg, the economy and security—highlighting the public salience of health framings of climate change.
COMMENT: The higher engagement in low- and middle-income countries is interesting. 'Hence, engagement is highest among the regions most affected by the impacts of climate change, and in those that have contributed least to the problem.' And equally, public engagement is lowest among those countries least affected, and that are contributing most to the problem, thereby limiting public pressure to reduce carbon emissions where it is needed the most.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org