What does America want from its healthcare system in 2025?
This is a question that was in the heart of Emory University professor Dr. Stephen Patrick, and now more than 2,000 American adults respond.
Patrick, chairman of health policy at the Rollins School of Public Health, and his team recently released findings from the Rollins Goalup Public Health Priorities Survey, looking at what's in the heart of the country.
What is Rollins-Gallup Public Health's Priority Survey?
Emory University partnered with Gallup to conduct self-controlled web interviews with adults in the United States from December 2nd to December 15th last year. 2,121 respondents were asked to rank public health issues ranging from affordable to social isolation based on what government and public health leaders should consider their top priorities for 2025.
According to Patrick, timing was everything.
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“When we started the process, we didn't know who was going to take office, so we deliberately led it to the outcome that came out right after someone had made a promise,” Patrick told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “So the goal wasn't to have our voices, but to have the voices of Americans where public health wanted us to be in the new administration.”
What is the heart of an American?
Over half (52%) of respondents ranked “improving access to healthcare and affordability” as one of the top three public health concerns, an unanimously agreed issue. To be precise, a quarter of respondents ranked it as their initial concern.
“They're a big problem. If we look at our top four priorities, we're looking at our access to healthcare and improving affordability, reducing chronic illness, reducing safe food and water, and protecting safety nets (Medicare, Medicaid, free clinics),” Patrick said. “These are things that Americans said across party lines.
The survey also asked respondents whether federal or state governments were effective in addressing the highest public health priorities. Respondents sided with the federal government on all three top-ranked public health issues.
“But each of them also includes state and local governments,” Patrick added. “Each of them includes elements of what we do locally. For example, we are truly local and we cannot improve our chronic illness without doing what we do to help each other.”
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Respondents were also asked whether the US has not made progress, lost ground or changed over the past decade in relation to eight key areas of public health.
“One of the things that hit me was that there was no single issue that more than half of the countries we thought we had made progress on, with all the items we tested,” he said. “But there were three areas in particular that we think we lost the ground.”
The majority of respondents said the country lost its position due to the opioid epidemic. Half of them said the same thing about mental health nationwide. And almost half (47%) believed that the US had lost its position in a healthy diet and lifestyle. However, 36% said the US has made progress in improving health outcomes for people with chronic illnesses.
Finally, respondents were asked to select the three most reliable sources of public health information. Of the 15 options, three ranked top the rankings: physicians, nurses, or healthcare providers (54%), scientific research and research (42%), and the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (37%).
Social media has only won a relatively thin 9% of the overall vote, but 16% of 18-29 people placed it in the three most reliable sources.
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“Non-Hispanic Americans and Republican men (including Republicans) were also one of the groups most likely to choose social media as the biggest and most reliable source of public health information.
What can we do about healthcare issues in the US?
When government leaders were asked what to take from the findings, an Emory University professor explained that this year it would provide direction for what Americans want.
“I think what Americans are saying to us is that they have a clear roadmap for where they want to go,” Patrick said. “In the coming years, we should consider ensuring access to care, reducing costs and strengthening systems that focus on other priorities Americans have.
“Make sure our food and water are safe and reduce chronic illnesses. Americans have given us a blueprint. All they want us to do is not more, but more. They want us to make sure we are strengthening the system there. And they also said there is a strong federal role across the party's boundaries. Whether they're Republicans or Democrats, they told us that at most margins, their top priority should be the federal government.”
