Public Supports Faster Medical Progress as Congressional Priority
For more than 30 years, Research!America has encouraged health and medical research to be a higher national priority. Year after year, our public opinion surveys have shown that the public also places this high value on research.
In 2019, our survey asked, “How important is it for the President and Congress to assign a high priority to ensure faster medical progress?”
84% of the respondents said it was “very important” or “somewhat important.”
In 2017 and 2018, we asked this question focusing on the role of the President. When asked, “How important is it for President Trump to assign a high priority to put health research and innovation to work to assure continued medical progress?” we found:
- 83% said it was very or somewhat important in 2018
- 80% said it was very or somewhat important in 2017
In 2016, we asked, “How important is it for candidates running for national office to assign a high priority to increasing funding for medical research?”
- 85% said it was very or somewhat important
We are all patients, and the public continues to support placing a high national priority on health and medical research.
Since Research!America was founded 30 years ago, a key strategy in advocating for medical and health research has been public opinion. As President Abraham Lincoln said, “…public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.” In this blog post series, we’ll highlight the findings of our 2019 national public opinion survey on medical, health, and scientific research, and explore the trends in the data where we can.