Americans see disease prevention as key to reform

It seems the American public understands healthcare delivery better than we thought. A new poll by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has concluded that 71 percent of U.S. residents support making larger investments in disease prevention.

The poll, which found that 44 percent strongly favor a jump in prevention spending, concluded that Americans weren't even daunted by the $34 billion in costs budgeted for prevention in health reform legislation. Seventy percent of people supported this investment, as opposed to only 24 percent against.

In fact, disease prevention was the second most popular reform strategy identified by the researchers, after banning health plans from excluding people due to age, medical problems or pre-existing conditions.

The survey also found that 82 percent of respondents favored better training for public health workers, up-to-date laboratories and an adequate communications infrastructure to deal with broader health threats.

To get data from the survey:
- read this report

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