Fentanyl, guns, the biggest health threats in the US

Report Issue

Please complete the required fields.

Your Name

Email

Reason (required)
This post contains broken linksPost has incorrect informationPost has spamCopyright IssueOther

Description

Submit

Republicans see fentanyl and other opioids as the biggest threat to Americans’ public health, while Democrats say it’s guns, according to a new survey.
The Axios-Ipsos American Health Index sheds light on how our partisan divisions—and our education levels—play into the wrangling over public health policies, and how they guide the parties’ political messaging.
The survey also found that Americans overwhelmingly want private health insurance companies to cover weight-loss drugs and that they support capping out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 per month.
Nearly half of Americans—47%—say insurers should cover transgender-related medical care. That’s a deeply partisan issue: 77% of Democrats favor it; just 16% of Republicans do.
“Like everything else, public health is a tale of two Americas — one red, one blue,” said Cliff Young, president of Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs. “Governments must be nimble to talk about multiple public health issues at once.”
The national survey of 1,213 U.S. Adults found that Americans’ concerns over opioids—including fentanyl, a synthetic—vary by education level, not just by party.
Opioids were the top health concern of 32% of people with a high school diploma or less, compared to 25% of people with some college and 20% of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Concerns about obesity appear to correlate to education: Just 12% of Americans with no college — but 30% of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher — say it’s the nation’s biggest public health threat.
There’s a big divide among those worried about guns, based on where they live: 22% of urban residents and 17% of suburban residents cited gun violence as their biggest concern, compared to just 8% of rural Americans.
Heart disease and cancer actually were the two leading causes of death in the U.S. as of 2021, followed by COVID-19 and accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But in the survey about Americans’ health concerns, cancer ranked a distant fourth, with coronavirus, unsafe roads or driving, smoking and tobacco products, and alcohol abuse next in line.