Americans' health priorities: curing cancer and controlling costs.

In this paper we provide a comprehensive examination of Americans' priorities within both health and health care. We find that Americans do have a clear set of priorities in each of these areas. Americans rated cancer, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and heart disease, and medical research to address these conditions, as top priorities among eighty health problems. However, they did not rank many leading causes of death very high as serious problems. On the issue of health care, problems of costs, prescription drugs, and the uninsured top the list. Americans are very concerned about emerging international infectious diseases that they believe threaten their health.