While a majority of Americans list cancer as the nation's most serious health issue, diabetes, obesity, heroin abuse, and bad drinking water all grab about the same amount of attention, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

Kaiser's April Tracking Poll asked participants to rank health concerns in four categories: Extremely serious, very serious, somewhat serious, and less serious. The answers paint a picture of a nation anxious about a wide array of afflictions, but not so worried about alcohol abuse or lack of access to affordable healthy food. The lack of access to health care also ranks low on the list of priorities.

Your interpretation of the results may depend upon your definition of "extremely serious" and "very serious."

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Dan Cook

Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.