Nearly 3 out of every 4 older Americans have experienced at least one extreme weather event in the last two years, and living through such an event appears to make a big difference in how they view the potential impact of climate change on their health, according to a new University of Michigan poll.

The findings from the National Poll on Healthy Aging show that 59% of people aged 50 and over are concerned about how climate change could affect their health.

The percentage expressing concern was even higher among those who had recently lived through a weather emergency such as a wildfire, extreme heat, severe storm or power outage lasting more than a day. In all, 70% of those who had experienced at least one such event in the past two years expressed concern about climate change and their health, compared with 26% of those who had not lived through such an event.

Other groups of older adults were also more likely to say they are concerned about the effects of climate change on their health, including women, those reporting fair or poor mental health, and those who live in urban areas.

Only 6% of people over 50, though, had talked with a health care provider about how extreme weather might affect their health and how they could prepare or protect themselves.

This indicates more opportunity for older adults to ask their doctors and other health care providers about things like how to protect their lungs from wildfire smoke, how to prepare for prolonged disruptions to their supply of medications or the electricity that powers their medical equipment, or how to know where to find cooling centers, warming centers and emergency shelters in their community.

The poll is based at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and supported by Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center. It 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 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.

In addition to concern for their own health, 74% of people aged 50 and over say they are concerned about the potential impact of climate change on the health of future generations. That includes 43% who say they are very concerned and 31% who are somewhat concerned.

Those older adults who had lived through a weather emergency in the past two years were more likely to express concern about future generations, with 83% of them saying they’re concerned, compared with 45% of those who had not experienced a weather emergency.

Extreme heat was the most common extreme weather event experienced by poll respondents, with 63% saying they had experienced at least one major heat wave in the past two years. Poor air quality due to wildfire smoke was next most common, at 35%, and 31% had been in the path of a severe storm. Prolonged power outages (lasting more than one day) were next most common, at 13%; power outages may be due to factors other than extreme weather.