What does the US public think about global health?

Nov 17th, 2009 1:00 PM UTC
By Chris Scott

If you regularly read the ONE Blog, it’s safe to say you have an certain interest in global health policy and the United States’ role in it. But how does the public as a whole feel? Public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation recently conducted a survey of 1,205 adults to gauge certain areas of global health spending, how aid should be distributed, and how the current Administration and Congress is doing in these efforts.

Below are a couple findings from the poll I found interesting. You can read the full report here.

More of the public prefers an emphasis on health infrastructure rather than fighting specific diseases. While the public continues to support U.S. spending on a variety of specific health-related programs in developing countries, when asked to rank the importance of two different approaches, 58 percent say it is more important to emphasize programs that help countries build their health system infrastructure, under the theory that stronger health systems can better handle a variety of problems. In contrast, 36 percent say it is more important to emphasize efforts to fight specific diseases like AIDS and malaria because efficient methods for treating such diseases already exist and can save large numbers of lives.

Most Americans support current U.S. spending to improve health conditions in poorer nations despite the economic recession. Two thirds of the public supports maintaining (32%) or increasing (34%) spending on global health, while a quarter say the country is spending too much. Also, 55 percent of Americans agree that “U.S. spending to improve health in developing countries helps protect the health of Americans by preventing the spread of epidemics to the U.S.” Four in 10 disagree, saying such spending “helps people in those countries but doesn’t do much to protect Americans’ health.”

TAGS: Kaiser Family Foundation, Policy News