If there's something that the British like to talk about almost as much as the weather, it's our health. When the two combine, they are guaranteed to create headlines. Both extreme heat and extreme cold have a predictable (if preventable) impact on health and mortality.

But although campaigners have struggled for years to fire the public imagination about climate change as an environmental problem, climate change is equally a serious public health issue. And, increasingly, there is evidence that framing climate change as a public health risk might be a better way of reaching beyond the green crowd and into the mainstream.

Could one reason for continuing public ambivalence about climate change be that it has lodged itself in the public consciousness as an environmental, rather than a health concern? A new paper published this month by Canadian researchers Francesca Cardwell and Susan Elliot is only the latest in a string of recent publications that have made exactly this point, arguing that unless more explicit links are made between health risks and climate change, public engagement will remain an uphill struggle.

Cardwell and Elliot found that few participants made an unprompted link between climate change and health. In another recent research study focusing on members of the American public, framing climate change as a public health issue elicited more positive engagement – emotions such as hope, for example – than framing it as an environmental or national security risk, even among individuals who were typically dismissive of climate change.

Studies like this suggest that when communicators explicitly make the links between climate change and health, the public is likely to listen. Put simply, health is one obvious way in which the abstract concept of climate change becomes real for people – one way in which climate change is manifested in our daily lives. So why isn't the connection being made more frequently?

Some organisations are beginning to join the dots. The Health Protection Agency published a gargantuan report last year, describing in detail the health impacts of climate change in the UK. And at a recent event at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, I took part in a workshop asking how the health impacts of climate change could be better communicated. It was clear that while there was huge potential for using the health impacts of climate change as a means of engaging the public, there was also a great deal that is not yet well understood.

For example, one way in which some sustainable behaviours can be promoted is by pointing to their co-benefits in terms of health. The obvious example is cycling – both a low-carbon and calorie-burning way of getting around. But what about sustainable behaviours that are not so good for your health? Turning the heating down in the winter is unlikely to be a positive health behaviour, especially for the elderly.

Climate change campaigns undoubtedly have lessons to learn from health practitioners. But although there is some evidence that the "social marketing" of health behaviours may be a useful guide for promoting sustainability, the transition is unlikely to be straightforward.

All of this suggests a more general point: climate change is not only – and is perhaps not even primarily – an environmental issue. Certainly, it is through the campaigns of environmental charities that the subject gained public awareness. But while concern about global temperatures may motivate some people to take action on climate change, most of us care about more tangible, local and concrete issues – with the health of our friends and family being an obvious example.

Health impacts – whether through flooding, increased droughts, or chaotic winter weather – are perhaps the primary way in which most people will experience climate change. And as previous research has shown, anything that can reduce the psychological distance between individuals and the abstract notion of climate change is likely to be an important tool for public engagement.

As a society, we are used to the idea of taking preventative action to ward off health risks, and there is an important lesson here for communicating climate change: the more that climate change can be presented as bad for our health, the more likely it is that folks beyond the keen-green crowd will take notice.

Adam Corner is a researcher and writer whose work focuses on the psychology of communicating climate change. He leads the Talking Climate programme for the Climate Outreach and Information Network and is a research associate in the School of Psychology at Cardiff University.

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox