NEHA March 2024 Journal of Environmental Health

ADVANCEMENT OF THE SCIENCE

FIGURE 2

Impact of Climate Action on National Issues Perceived by National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) Members and the United States Public From the American Climate Metrics Survey

I mprov e th e Economy

I mprov e Health

66

0 10 20 30 40 5 0 60 70

0 10 20 30 40 5 0 60 70 80

64

64*

73*

72

61

68

67

66

66

65

5 6

5 5

5 3

5 4

45

U.S. Public

NEHA Members

U.S. Public

NEHA Members

2016 2017 2018 2019

2016 2017 2018 2019

I ncrease J obs

Decrease Cost of Energy

0 10 20 30 40 5 0 60 70

40

37

61

5 9*

5 6

5 6

5 6

5 2

30

30

47

47

27

26*

21

19

20

10

0

U.S. Public

NEHA Members

U.S. Public

NEHA Members

2016 2017 2018 2019

2017 2018 2019

*Significant based on chi-square analyses ( p < .05).

dents. In 2019, 18% of NEHA members, com- pared with 41% of the U.S. public, agreed that the costs of acting on climate change are too high, which is a significant di erence. Survey Results: Climate Change Solutions NEHA members have demonstrated continu- ous support from year to year for a breadth of proposed climate solutions. Over the years, more than 90% of NEHA members strongly supported modernizing the electric grid and almost 90% of NEHA members supported expanding public transportation, compared with three quarters (77% and 74%, respec- tively) of the U.S. public respondents in 2019. In 2019, NEHA members showed sig- nificantly stronger support for each of the cli- mate solutions than did the public. See Table 3 for more detail on the extent of support for climate change solutions.

In 2019, climate solutions from the Green New Deal were included in the survey. NEHA members were significantly more supportive of most of these solutions than were public respondents (Figure 3). Of NEHA members, 89% supported technologies that remove car- bon pollution from the air compared with 79% of the public; further, 84% of NEHA members supported training for jobs as we transition to a Green New Deal, compared with 74% of public respondents. There was not a significant di erence between the two groups regarding support for speeding up the transition to clean energy sources. Discussion Our findings are consistent with a survey of local public health o”cials and U.S. public respondents that showed most public health professionals and the public believe climate change is happening (NACCHO, 2014). In

response to the statement that climate change is noticeably causing harm to people now, however, NEHA members and public health o”cials showed more concern than did public respondents (NACCHO, 2014). Furthermore, NEHA members were significantly more likely than public respondents to believe that climate change will cause harm across a broad diver- sity of people. Environmental public health professionals have observed firsthand the impacts of climate change on their communi- ties and its e ects on routine services such as food and water safety, vector control, air qual- ity, and disaster preparedness. Our analysis also revealed that a major- ity of the surveyed NEHA members increas- ingly agreed that climate change solutions will improve national issues such as health, economy, and jobs. This finding was signifi- cantly di erent than that of public respon- dents, whose agreement that climate change

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Volume 86 • Number 7

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