Most older Michiganders worry about climate change’s effects on health – especially if they’ve experienced extreme weather

Most Michiganders over age 50 are concerned about the potential effects of climate change on their health and the health of future generations, a new University of Michigan poll finds.  

And those who have lived through at least one recent extreme weather event are far more likely to express concern about the potential effects of climate change, according to the new findings from the Michigan Poll on Healthy Aging. 

In all, 67% of older Michiganders say they have experienced at least one extreme weather event in the last two years, with those in the southeast and central parts of the state more likely to say so than those in the northern and southwest parts of the state.
 

Meanwhile, 62% of older Michiganders say they’re concerned about the impact of climate change on their health – about the same as the 58% of people in the same age group across the rest of the country who expressed concern. And 77% of Michiganders age 50+ are very or somewhat concerned about the impact of climate change on the health of future generations

When the poll team looked at the intersection between previous experiences with extreme weather and climate-related concerns, they saw major differences.  

In all, 75% of Michiganders over 50 who had lived through a severe weather event said they are very or somewhat concerned about climate and their own health, compared with 33% of older Michiganders without such an experience in recent times.  

And 88% of Michiganders who had experienced a severe weather event expressed concern for the impact of climate change on future generations’ health, compared with 55% of those who had not experienced an event.

The poll, based at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and supported by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, is being issued on the same day as a national poll report on the same topic.  

To see and interact with data from the Michigan poll, visit https://michmed.org/MDKQ2.  

“As Michiganders, we experience the four seasons to the fullest – but this poll suggests that for many people it takes experiencing an extreme weather event to really register the potential impacts of climate change for themselves and younger people,” said Sue Anne Bell, Ph.D., FNP-BC, a nurse practitioner and associate professor at the U-M School of Nursing who worked with the poll team. Bell specializes in studying the impacts of disasters and public health emergencies among older adults.

Differences in experiences

The poll was conducted in August 2024, before some of the most extreme climate-related emergencies of the past year, such as September’s Hurricane Helene – the deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – and the wildfires in the Los Angeles area in January of 2025.  

In all, 2023 and 2024 were nearly tied for the number of weather and climate disasters with costs of more than a billion dollars, and the number of disasters of such magnitude has grown over the lifetimes of today’s older adults.

Michiganders over 50 are twice as likely to have experienced a long power outage than their peers in the rest of the country, at 24% vs. 12%. Within Michigan, those living in the southeast region of the state reported having the highest rate of prolonged power outages, at 33% compared with 10% to 20% of those in other areas of the state. Power outages may be due to factors other than extreme weather.

Michiganders aged 50 and over were also more likely than their peers nationwide to say they’d experienced wildfire smoke, at 41% compared with 35%, though the poll was taken before the most recent wildfires in California. Within the state, southeastern and central Michiganders were more likely to say they’d experienced wildfire smoke.  

Older Michiganders were less likely than older adults in the rest of the country to say they’d experienced severe storms, at 26% vs 31%, or severe heat at 43% vs. 63%.  
 

Differences in concern about climate change and health

Overall, older Michiganders living in the southeast part of the state were most likely to express concern about the potential impact of climate change on their health, at 67%. The southern and central parts of the state had a similar percentage of older adults expressing concern as the rest of the nation, at around 58%, and 54% of those in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula were concerned about the potential impact of climate change on their health.  

The poll also looked at how experience with specific types of extreme weather events intersected with climate change attitudes.  

For example, Michiganders aged 50 and older who had experienced extreme heat were much more likely to say they’re concerned about the impact of extreme heat on their health than those who hadn’t experienced extreme heat, at 82% vs 48%.  

Similarly, 86% of older Michiganders who had experienced a severe storm, and 81% of those who had experienced a long power outage, expressed concern about the potential for climate change to cause a loss of basic infrastructure, compared with 63% of those who hadn’t experienced a severe storm and 65% of those who hadn’t experienced a long power outage.

Michiganders over 50 who had experienced a severe storm were also much more likely to say that they’re concerned about the potential for more frequent severe storms as a result of climate change. Nearly all (91%) of those with this experience expressed concern compared with 61% of those who hadn’t experienced a severe storm.  

Experience also made a difference when it came to concern about the potential impact of climate change on air quality. In all, 88% of older Michiganders who had experienced poor air quality due to wildfire smoke said they are concerned about climate change and air quality, compared with 56% of those who had not had this kind of experience.  

Preparing for emergencies

Those who had lived through an extreme weather event were more likely to say that a health care provider had talked with them about preparing for future climate-related emergencies, but even so only 10% of this group reported having had such a conversation, compared with 2% of those who hadn’t been through a climate event.

“In addition, 13% of those who say they have a health problem or disability that limits their daily activities had discussed the need to prepare for future climate-related emergencies with a health care provider, whether or not the person had been through a recent climate event,” said poll director Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., a primary care physician at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and associate professor of internal medicine at U-M.  

Those who have activity-limiting health problems or disabilities were also more likely to express concern about climate change’s potential impact on their health, on basic infrastructure and on infectious diseases.  

The MIReady website run by Michigan’s government offers information about how to prepare for and cope with extreme weather events and other emergencies, as well as links for signing up for local emergency alert systems run by communities and counties across the state.

The poll findings come from a nationally representative survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for IHPI and administered online and via phone in August 2024 among 1,175 Michigan older adults and 3,137 non-Michigan adults ages 50 – 94. The samples were subsequently weighted to reflect the Michigan and U.S. populations.

 Read past National Poll on Healthy Aging reports and about the poll methodology.