Journal Articles

Engaging Diverse Audiences with Climate Change: Message Strategies for Global Warming’s Six Americas

This chapter will appear in the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Environment and Communication, Second Edition,…

An eye tracking approach to understanding misinformation and correction strategies on social media: The mediating role of attention and credibility to reduce HPV vaccine misperceptions

This study uses an unobtrusive eye tracking approach to examine understudied psychological mechanisms—message attention and…

How Hope and Doubt Affect Climate Change Mobilization

Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence

Fossil fuels are harming our brains: Identifying key messages about the health effects of air pollution from fossil fuels

A large body of evidence suggests that a transition away from fossil fuels toward a…

Understanding and countering misinformation about climate change

ABSTRACT While there is overwhelming scientific agreement on climate change, the public has become polarized…

Turning Climate Misinformation into an Educational Opportunity: Chapter 2

Our Turning Misinformation into Educational Opportunities (TMEO) Teacher Ambassadors have developed and field tested five misconceptions-based climate…

Increasing Public Awareness and Facilitating Behavior Change: Two Guiding Heuristics

If there is a single aspiration that unifies the professionals who work on the challenges…

Communicating Sea Level Rise

Three quarters of the world’s large cities are located on coasts. As climate change causes…

How to Inoculate the Public Against Misinformation About Climate Change

In this study, we tested whether preemptive “inoculation messages” can protect the beneficial effects of…

The Consumer as Climate Activist

Consumption of green products is growing rapidly in the United States. We assessed the extent…

TV Meteorologists as Local Climate Change Educators

Five years ago – in partnership with Climate Central and WLTX (Columbia, SC) – we…

The Importance of Assessing and Communicating Scientific Consensus

The spread of influential misinformation, such as conspiracy theories about the existence of a secret,…

Developing effective communication materials on the health effects of climate change for vulnerable groups: a mixed methods study

Individuals with chronic health conditions or low socioeconomic status (SES) are more vulnerable to the…

Risky business: Engaging the public on sea level rise and inundation

To examine whether U.S. public opinion may become as sharply polarized on adaptation responses as…

When Should Environmental Awareness Be a Policy Goal? Assessing the Conditions Under Which Raising Awareness Increases Environmental Sustainability and Societal Resilience

Since the 1970s, governments have increasingly sought to achieve greater environmental awareness among their citizens…

Documenting the Human Health Impacts of Climate Change in Tropical and Subtropical Regions

Climate change is harming human health, and the magnitude of the harm is increasing. This…

The Role of Collective Efficacy in Climate Change Adaptation in India

Research on adaptive capacity often focuses on economics and technology, despite evidence from the social…

Vulnerable Populations Perceive Their Health as at Risk from Climate Change

In this 2013 survey we measured Maryland residents’ climate beliefs, health risk perceptions, and household…

Highlighting Consensus Among Medical Scientists Increases Public Support For Vaccines: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

A substantial minority of American adults continue to hold influential misperceptions about childhood vaccine safety.…

Improving Public Engagement with Climate Change: Five “Best Practice” Insights from Psychological Science

Despite being one of the most important societal challenges of the 21st century, public engagement…

Local Climate Experts: The Influence of Local TV Weather Information on Climate Change Perceptions

Individuals who identify changes in their local climate are also more likely to report that…

Do Americans Understand Global Warming is Harmful to Health? Evidence from a National Survey

Global warming has significant negative consequences for human health, with some groups at greater risk…

Climate Matters: A Comprehensive Educational Resource Program for Broadcast Meteorologists

Global climate change is influencing the weather in every region of the United States, often…

Mona Safarty, MD MPH, and Edward Maibach, MPH PhD, in Climate Change and Public Health

Climate change is causing, and will increasingly cause, a wide range of adverse health effects,…

Simple Messages Help Set the Record Straight about Scientific Agreement on Human-Caused Climate Change: The Results of Two Experiments

Human-caused climate change is happening; nearly all climate scientists are convinced of this basic fact…

Views of AAAAI Members on Climate Change and Health

The American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) assessed their members’ knowledge, attitudes, and…

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence

There is currently widespread public misunderstanding about the degree of scientific consensus on human-caused climate…

American Thoracic Society (ATS) Member Survey on Climate Change and Health

This article presents the results of a survey of the American Thoracic Society and the Center…

A Survey of African American Physicians on the Health Effects of Climate Change

The U.S. National Climate Assessment concluded that climate change is harming the health of many…

Evaluation of a National High School Entertainment-Education Program

Ever-increasing global warming has created a societal imperative to reach and engage youth, whose futures…

Weathercaster Views on Informal Climate Education: Similarities and Differences According to Climate Change Attitudes

Surveys have found that weathercaster views on climate change are diverse, with a large majority…

Meteorologists’ Views about Global Warming: A Survey of the American Meteorological Society Professional Members

In a survey of AMS members, perceived scientific consensus was the strongest predictor of views…

The Mutual Reinforcement of Media Selectivity and Effects: Testing the Reinforcing Spirals Framework in the Context of Global Warming

This study tests a model of reinforcing spirals in the context of global warming, using…

How to Communicate the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: Plain Facts, Pie Charts or Metaphors?

Previous research has identified public perceptions of the scientific consensus on climate change as an…

The Genesis of Climate Change Activism: From Key Beliefs to Political Advocacy

There are numerous examples of a growing U.S. climate movement. Protests against the Keystone XL…

Climate Scientists Need to Set the Record Straight: There is a Scientific Consensus that Human-Caused Climate Change is Happening

Nearly all climate scientists are convinced that human-caused climate change is occurring, yet half of…

Human Health (Chapter 9) – Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment

Climate change, together with other natural and human-made health stressors, influences human health and disease…

Climate Discussion Echoes Tobacco Debate

In 1962, Luther Terry, the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, established the Surgeon…

Climate Change Education through TV Weathercasts: Results of a Field Experiment

A field study shows that on-air and online education provided by a TV meteorologist over…

Fracking Controversy and Communication: Using National Survey Data to Understand Public Perceptions of Hydraulic Fracturing

The recent push to develop unconventional sources of oil and gas both in the U.S.…

If They Like You They Learn From You: How a Brief Weathercaster-Delivered Climate Education Segment is Moderated by Viewer Evaluations of the Weathercaster

Local television (TV) weathercasters are a potentially promising source of climate education, in that weather…

Attitude Change in Competitive Framing Environments? Open/Closed-Mindedness and Framing Effects about Climate Change

Framing scholarship on policy issues has primarily focused on how competitive message environments alter framing…

The Relationship Between Personal Experience and Belief in the Reality of Global Warming

In this paper, we address the chicken-or-egg question posed by two alternative explanations for the…

Knowing Our Options for Setting the Record Straight, When Doing So is Particularly Important

Like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Disney’s Fantasia, many people in today’s society are experiencing a…

Do People “Personally Experience” Global Warming, and If So How, and Does It Matter?

For most people, the direct and personally observable signals of climate change should be difficult…

The Legacy of “Climategate:” Undermining or Revitalizing Climate Science and Policy?

In mid-November 2009, emails were removed without authorization from a University of East Anglia server…

A Public Health Frame Arouses Hopeful Emotions about Climate Change

Communication researchers and practitioners have suggested that framing climate change in terms of public health…

Information Seeking About Global Climate Change Among Adolescents: The Role of Risk Perceptions, Efficacy Beliefs and Parental Influences

Global climate change is likely to have significant impacts on public health. Effective communication is…

Goodbye, Listwise Deletion. Presenting Hot Deck Imputation as an Easy and Effective Tool for Handling Missing Data

Missing data are a ubiquitous problem in quantitative communication research, yet the missing data handling…

Time to Take Action on Climate Communication

According to Broad International Agreement, a global warming increase beyond 2°C is unacceptable. Because of the…

Framing Peak Petroleum as a Public Health Problem: Audience Research and Participatory Engagement

Between December 2009 and January 2010, we conducted a nationally representative telephone survey of US…

Attention to Science/Environment News Positively Predicts and Attention to Political News Negatively Predicts Global Warming Risk Perceptions and Policy Support

Contemporary science and environmental news coverage of global warming increasingly portrays scientific consensus. Political news…

Audience Segmentation as a Tool for Communicating Climate Change: Understanding the Differences and Bridging the Divides

Communicating climate change to 300 million national park visitors each year represents both an enormous…

A Rose By Any Other Name? What Members of the General Public Prefer to Call “Climate Change”

Unlike many other environmental problems, the terms used to describe the phenomenon of increasing atmospheric…

Identifying Like-Minded Audiences for Global Warming Public Engagement Campaigns: An Audience Segmentation Analysis and Tool Development

Achieving national reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will require public support for climate and energy…

ClimateGate Undermined Belief in Global Warming Among Many TV Meteorologists

“Climategate”—the unauthorized release of, and news stories about, e-mails between climate scientists in the United…

Public Perceptions of Climate Change as a Health Risk: Surveys of the United States

We used data from nationally representative surveys conducted in the United States, Canada and Malta…

Reframing Climate Change as a Public Health Issue: An Exploratory Study of Public Reactions

Climate change is taking a toll on human health, and some leaders in the public…

A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming by Paul Edwards [Book Review]

For communication scholars, the oft-cited dynamics of the climate debates are all too familiar: media…

Promoting Physical Activity and Reducing Climate Change

Automobile use is a significant contributor to climate change, local air pollution, pedestrian injuries and…

Creating a Common Climate Language

The National Research Council has observed that climate science is progressing well, but the use…

No More Business as Usual: Addressing Climate Change through Constructive Engagement

Should we panic yet? This was the question asked and answered (in the negative) by…

This Year in Copenhagen-Maibach Editorial

… The wellbeing of humanity over the next millennium may will rest on our nearterm…

Communication and Marketing as Climate Change Intervention Assets: A Public Health Perspective

The understanding that global climate change represents a profound threat to the health and well-being…

Adapting to the Changing Climate: An Assessment of Local Health Department Preparations For Climate Change-Related Health Threats, 2008-2012

Climate change poses a major public health threat. A survey of U.S. local health department…

Climate Change and Local Public Health in the United States: Preparedness, Programs and Perceptions of Local Public Health Department Directors

The understanding that global climate change represents a profound threat to the health and well-being…

Is Support for Traditionally Designed Communities Growing? Evidence From Two National Surveys

Many voices within the planning community have called for replacement of the dominant model of…

The Effectiveness of Mass Communication to Change Public Behavior

This article provides an overview of the ways in which mass communication has been used—or…

The Polls-Trends: Twenty Years of Public Opinion about Global Warming

The Polls-Trends: Twenty Years of Public Opinion about Global Warming - Over the past 20 years, there…

Communication and Marketing as Tools to Cultivate the Public’s Health: A Proposed “People and Places” Framework

Communication and marketing are rapidly becoming recognized as core functions, or core competencies, in the…