What does America want out of its health care system in 2025?
It’s a question that’s been on Emory University professor Dr. Stephen Patrick’s mind, and now over 2,000 U.S. adults have answered back.
Patrick, chair of the Rollins School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy, and his team recently published their findings from the Rollins-Gallup Public Health Priorities Survey, offering a look at what’s on the nation’s mind.
What is the Rollins-Gallup Public Health Priorities Survey?
Emory University partnered with Gallup to conduct self-administered web interviews to U.S. adults from Dec. 2 to Dec. 15 last year. The 2,121 respondents were asked to rank public health issues — ranging from affordability to social isolation — based on what government and public health leaders should consider the highest priorities for 2025.
According to Patrick, timing was everything.
“When we started the process, we didn’t know who was going to be in office and we intentionally fielded it after the election with results to come out just shortly after we had somebody sworn in,” Patrick told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “So the goal of this was to not have our voices, but have Americans’ voices on where they wanted public health to be in the new administration.”
What’s on Americans’ minds?
Over half (52%) of respondents ranked “improving health care access and affordability” as one of their top three public health concerns, making it the most unanimously agreed upon issue. Precisely a quarter of respondents ranked it as their first concern.
“They’re big problems, when we look at the top four priorities: improving health care access and affordability, reducing chronic disease, safe food and water and then protecting the safety net (Medicare, Medicaid, and free clinics),” Patrick said. “Those are things where Americans said, across party lines, there needs to be a substantial federal role.”
The survey also asked respondents if federal or state government was more effective at addressing their top public health priorities. For all three highest ranked public health issues, respondents sided with the federal government.
“But each one of those also involves state and local government,” Patrick added. “Each one of them involves an element of what we do locally. Like, we can’t improve chronic disease without being really local and doing the things that we do to help each other be healthy.”
Respondents were also asked if the U.S. made progress, lost ground or not changed over the last decade concerning eight key areas of public health.
“One of the things that struck me is, for every item we tested, there was not a single issue where more than half the country thought we had made progress,” he said. “But there were three areas in particular where they think we had lost ground.”
A majority of respondents said the nation has lost ground in the opioid epidemic. Half said the same about mental health nationwide. And nearly half (47%) believed the U.S. has lost ground with healthy dieting and lifestyles. However, 36% of people said the U.S. has made progress at improving the health outcomes of those with chronic diseases.
Lastly, respondents were asked to select their three most trusted sources of public health information. Out of 15 options, three topped the rankings: doctor, nurse or health care providers (54%), scientific research and studies (42%) and the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (37%).
While social media only earned a comparatively slender 9% of the overall votes, 16% of adults 18 to 29 placed it within their top three most trusted sources.
“Non-Hispanic Black Americans and Republican men (including Republican leaners) were also among the groups most likely to pick social media as a top trusted source for public health information — at 16% and 12%, respectively,” according to the survey report.
What can be done about U.S. health care issues?
When asked what government leaders should take from the survey results, the Emory University professor explained that it offers direction for what the American people want this year.
“I think what Americans are telling us is that there’s a clear road map for where they want us to go,” Patrick said. “As we think about the next couple of years, we should be thinking about bolstering systems that ensure access to care, reduce costs and that are focused on the other priorities that Americans have.
“Making sure that our food and water are safe, reducing chronic disease — Americans have given us a blueprint. What they want us to do is more, not less. They want us to make sure that we are bolstering the systems that are there. And they also told us that there’s a strong federal role for that, across party lines. Whether they were Republicans or Democrats, most — by a wide margin — told us that their top priorities should have the federal government play a leading role.”
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