Polling

This partnership survey from The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation explores what feminism means in today’s America, providing a detailed look at the complex views that both women and men hold about the word and the social movement that bears its name. The survey assesses the public’s priorities for improving women’s lives, their views on the relevance of the women’s movement, the role of government in promoting gender equality, their beliefs about discrimination, levels of social and civic engagement, and views on political and policy issues such as equal pay, birth control coverage, and abortion.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has tracked public opinion on global health issues in-depth since 2009. This most recent survey examines views on U.S. spending on health in developing countries and perceptions of barriers and challenges to making progress on the issue. Two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) overall and majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans alike, say that the United States should play at least a major role in world affairs, including roughly one in five overall (18 percent) who say the U.S. should take the leading role. The survey also finds a general skepticism on the part of the American people when it comes to the effectiveness of global health spending, with seven in ten saying the “bang for the buck” of U.S. spending in this area is only fair or poor, and more than half believing that spending more on global health efforts won’t lead to meaningful progress (a share that has grown since 2012). Although many Americans have concerns about the value of global health spending, six in ten say the U.S. spends too little (26 percent) or about the right amount (34 percent) on global health, and three in ten say it spends too much. Most also recognize benefits to such spending, both for Americans at home as well as for people and communities in developing countries.

This Kaiser Family Foundation/New York Times survey explores the attitudes of Chicago residents on the political, economic, and social issues confronting their city. It probes deeply into the views and experiences of Chicago’s Black, White, and Hispanic residents, including issues of crime and policing, race relations, and life in Chicago’s neighborhoods.

The 2016 Survey of Americans on the U.S. Role in Global Health is the latest in a series of surveys designed, conducted, and analyzed by the Kaiser Family Foundation in order to shed light on the American public’s perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes about the role of the United States in efforts to improve health for people in developing countries. This most recent survey updates trends on Americans’ perceptions of the most urgent problems facing developing countries, views on U.S. spending on health, and U.S. priorities for women’s health in developing countries. It also explores new questions on Americans’ awareness of the Zika virus outbreak and recent U.S. efforts to combat the outbreak both at home and in developing countries.

The Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Pennsylvania Residents measures Pennsylvanians’ opinions about a selection of health issues, including which issues they believe state policymakers should prioritize, opinions about prescription painkiller abuse, and experiences accessing and paying for health care. The survey was conducted March 7-15, 2016 among a representative sample of 804 adults ages 18 and over living in Pennsylvania.

The November Kaiser Health Tracking poll finds that 70 percent of the public say people in Puerto Rico affected by Hurricane Maria are not yet getting needed help, up from 62 percent in October. Similarly, most of the public (59 percent) says the federal government is not doing enough to restore electricity and access to food and water in Puerto Rico. As with Puerto Rico’s recovery effort, most of the public also reports closely following news about the recovery in the Houston area after Hurricane Harvey.

The Kaiser Health Policy News Index is designed to help journalists and policymakers better understand which health policy-related news stories Americans are following, and what the public knows about health policy issues covered in the news. This analysis examines the top health policy news stories in 2016.

The survey gauges the public’s knowledge and views about Puerto Rico’s recovery efforts following the devastating category 4 hurricane that struck Sept. 20. Most Americans say that Puerto Ricans affected by Hurricane Maria are not yet getting the help they need, and about half say that the federal government has been too slow to respond and is not doing enough to restore electricity and access to food and water. Republicans are much more likely than Democrats or independents to view the federal response as appropriate.

On the cusp of the 2016 presidential election, the latest Kaiser Family Foundation/CNN partnership poll explores the views and experiences of white Americans without college degrees (a group defined in this survey as “working-class whites”), including how they feel about their own lives and the direction of the country, their attitudes towards government, their economic priorities, feelings about immigration and increasing racial and ethnic diversity, and personal experiences with employment and finances.

Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 30, 1965 in a bipartisan effort to provide health insurance coverage for low-income, disabled, and elderly Americans. In their 50 year history, each of these programs has come to play a key role in providing health coverage to millions of Americans today and make up a significant component of federal and state budgets. As major programs both in size and scope, their role and the ways in which they operate are often debated by policymakers and the public alike. As the programs reach their 50th year, the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a nationally representative survey of Americans to explore the public’s views of these programs, their experiences as beneficiaries, and their opinions on proposals for future changes.