Staff and friends of the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services take part in a health event at the 2023 State Fair in August in Sedalia, Missouri. A poll by the de Beaumont Foundation found that many people know a local public health official and think favorably of them.
Missouri Department of Health and Human Services, Flickr Creative Commons
Americans are not only more aware of the work of their local public health departments than in recent years — they think more highly of their officials too, a recent poll finds.
Conducted in May, the national poll commissioned by the de Beaumont Foundation found that 60% of Americans are familiar with their health department, compared to 53% in 2022. More than half of respondents said they were familiar with a local public health official, and of those, 70% said they had a favorable opinion of that official — both of which also increased.
That support bridged the political aisle, with 75% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans holding a positive view of their local official.
“The shared pandemic experience seems to have driven deeper familiarity with and support of public health departments and officials, along with a stronger understanding of the important role of public health in keeping families well,” said Brian Castrucci, DrPH, president and CEO of de Beaumont, in a blog post. “Importantly, the level of familiarity and support is not waning with time, but continues to rise.”
The Morning Consult poll also found that as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, fewer people think preventing future pandemics should be the highest priority for health departments. While more than a third of U.S. adults chose that topic as most important in May 2021, only 17% did this year. In comparison, 18% said conducting research on diseases should be the prime concern, followed by fighting the opioid epidemic, at 16%, and addressing racial health disparities, at 15%.
Though the U.S. continues to experience a maternal health crisis, with deaths among pregnant women far outpacing other high-income nations, the rate of people who named reducing risks from childbirth the highest priority for health departments fell to 5%. Two out of three respondents said that addressing racial disparities should be a priority for new public health funding. More than one-third of poll respondents also said racial discrimination influences their health and that of their friends and family.
For more information, visit https://debeaumont.org.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
