En-ROADS offers powerful ways to explore the health impacts of climate change while highlighting key lessons about the benefits of strong, timely climate action and how much better health outcomes can be under ambitious policies. Interactive simulations like En-ROADS are far more engaging and effective than lectures or slide presentations, making them essential for fostering dialogue and creating shared understanding. 


Here are 4 ways in which you can use En-ROADS to talk about the health impacts of climate change:


1. Advocacy

Healthcare providers and advocates can use En-ROADS to communicate the health benefits of climate action to policymakers and the public, highlighting co-benefits such as improved air quality, reduced heat stress, and lower disease risk.


As trusted experts, healthcare professionals are uniquely positioned to be effective messengers on climate change, particularly when health impacts are translated into economic terms that resonate with decision-makers. En-ROADS can help show how climate-related health harms—such as extreme heat reducing outdoor labor—carry real financial costs through lost productivity, which translates into lower incomes and tax revenues, and increased spending on healthcare, disability, and social support.


Example: Physicians groups meet with state legislators and use En-ROADS to show projected reductions in air pollution and heat exposure, connecting these changes to fewer asthma attacks, heat-related ER visits, and missed work and school days in the state.


2. Capacity-building and awareness

Healthcare boards, administrators, clinicians, public health leaders, union and labor leaders, and pension fund trustees can use En-ROADS to build a shared understanding of climate change and increase awareness of its health impacts. 


Example: A hospital board uses En-ROADS in a planning session to explore how different climate pathways influence heat-related illness and air quality.


3. Local government risk assessment

Public health teams, hospitals, and health departments can use En-ROADS to connect climate scenarios with local and regional health risks. The model’s interactive maps of extreme heat, wildfire risk, drought, and other hazards help illustrate how different climate futures translate into real-world health impacts and preparedness needs. While the maps in En-ROADS are not downscaled to the level of individual hospitals or neighborhoods, they are dynamic and scenario-based, allowing users to compare roughly best-case and worst-case pathways and see how health risks escalate—or are reduced—under different policy choices.


Example: A city health department uses En-ROADS to understand the growing risk of heat for their city. They then bring in more detailed street-by-street heat-risk maps to plan for future emergency department demand and cooling infrastructure and partner with the city planning department to increase tree cover.


4. Health education

Healthcare systems and educators can use En-ROADS in training and to inform organizational strategies and training. The tool can help staff and students understand connections between hospital sustainability initiatives, policy decisions, and health outcomes. En-ROADS has been incorporated into over 250 courses taught by over 150 academics in 25 countries, including Stanford University, Tsinghua University, Harvard University, MIT, University of Queensland, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Nanyang Technological University, and King’s College London. 


Examples:

  • Medical and nursing schools include En-ROADS in their curriculum to explain the drivers of climate risks and how they increasingly affect health outcomes.
  • Healthcare systems include En-ROADS in their staff training to create buy-in for sustainability initiatives such as hospital net zero goals and supply chain and medical waste improvements.


How do I use En-ROADS in my workshop to connect climate action and health outcomes?

  • Examine the health impacts in the simulator under Graphs > Impacts and see how much better the world would be if we took action by comparing the Baseline Scenario to the Current Scenario.
  • Use the maps under Graphs > Impacts to zoom in on your local area to see the changes in local temperature, sea level rise, wildfire danger days, drought, extreme heat and humidity. Learn more about the maps in En-ROADS.
  • Point out the near-term benefits of climate action such as reduction in air pollution.
  • If you’re running the Climate Action Simulation roleplaying game, add the optional Health Advocates stakeholder group to incorporate the voice and concerns of those who care for people on the front lines of climate change.
  • Pair insights from the model—such as the need to reduce fossil fuels, the urgency of action, and the near-term benefits on air pollution—with external health data, maps, or case studies to ground the discussion in local or sector-specific concerns.


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