Released at the APHA meeting on November 9, the poll on Americans’ attitudes toward public health was commissioned by Research!America and consisted of a telephone survey conducted nationwide between October 1 and October 4 of more than 1,000 adults. For the full report, visit http://www.researchamerica.org.

Some of the respondents’ opinions were at stark odds with current trends in government practices. While federal funding supports faith-based sex education programs that teach abstinence-only to teens, more than half of the poll respondents are unconvinced that abstinence-only approaches prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. While a number of environmental protection regulations are under threat of dismantling, 64 percent of those polled indicated that investing in environmental research is very important, and a whopping 77 percent of those polled said that they would support federal regulations that require industries to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions.

Pointing to that last result, Georges Benjamin, executive director of APHA, said at a press conference announcing the poll: "There is at least one situation [in which] the public would like to have a government engaged in what it does best, which is to provide leadership and regulatory oversight if necessary to make sure that basic, fundamental public health–the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat–is protected."

When asked to reconcile approval of the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions with U.S. withdrawal of support for the Kyoto treaty, Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, said, "What Americans support and what their elected representatives actually act on are not always the same thing."

As the numbers of uninsured Americans ratchet higher, 65 percent of survey respondents said that they thought access to health insurance was very important in determining if someone receives high-quality health care. In the same question, only 29 percent recognized that race/ethnicity may play a key role. "At the end of the day, Americans are very fair people, but you have to make a compelling argument that there is an inequity," said Benjamin, who added that people needed to be better educated about health disparities and about ways to address the issue.

The poll results also revealed a nation that recognizes the importance of public health but is uninformed about who conducts research. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that they or their communities have benefited from public health services, and more than half said that they knew someone personally who works in the field. Yet, only 13 percent correctly identified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an agency that does research to promote health and to prevent disease, disability, and injury. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) fared even worse, with only five percent of participants naming the agency.