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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Commun.
Sec. Science and Environmental Communication
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2024.1429264

Evaluation of online training to promote peer diffusion of climate change activism in the US

Provisionally accepted
Lauren Dayton Lauren Dayton 1*Melissa Scherkoske Melissa Scherkoske 1Kennedy Countess Kennedy Countess 1Ariel Balaban Ariel Balaban 2Jacob Miller Jacob Miller 3Jaiye Wang Jaiye Wang 1Kristin Schneider Kristin Schneider 1Carl A Latkin Carl A Latkin 1
  • 1 Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States
  • 2 School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, United States
  • 3 School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Enacting policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions requires climate change activism (CCA). CCA behaviors include volunteering/donating to organizations addressing climate change and lobbying policymakers. However, effective methods to promote CCA are not well understood. In August 2022, 622 US adults participated in a randomized control trial and one-month follow-up to assess the efficacy of the Climate Change Activism Peer Educator Training Program, a brief one-time training that aims to train people to talk to their social network members about engaging in CCA. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction. The CCA training increased self-efficacy in having conversations about CCA but did not significantly impact the frequency of communicating about or engaging in CCA. Study findings suggest that future CCA interventions target people motivated to take action about climate change for peer educators, tailor training modules to social network characteristics, integrate prompts to reinforce behavior change, and provide easy and specific targets for CCA. Introduction Immediate action is critical to mitigating anthropogenic climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Climate changes include increases in temperature, precipitation, sea level, ocean acidification, and frequency of extreme weather conditions. These weather events, in turn, affect every dimension of human health, including, but not limited to, heat-related death, infectious disease transmission, food insecurity, geopolitical tensions, human migration, and

    Keywords: Climate Change, climate change activism, behavior change intervention, peer diffusion, Climate change communication

    Received: 07 May 2024; Accepted: 21 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Dayton, Scherkoske, Countess, Balaban, Miller, Wang, Schneider and Latkin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Lauren Dayton, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.