Though health providers nervously prepare for an influenza pandemic that threatens their hospitals, office practices and clinics, more than half of Americans surveyed don't think the virus will have a significant impact on public health.
That's the conclusion of a Harris Interactive telephone survey commissioned between Sept. 10 and 13 by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. Of the 2,500 people who received phone calls, 40% agreed to respond.
"The reality is we're never going to get to near epidemic reaction until something really, really hits us hard," says Paul Keckley, PhD, executive director, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
Still, Keckley adds, public health officials should be congratulated for being so successful in spreading the word. The survey shows that while 52% don't think H1N1 will have a serious impact, 44% believe it will. "The fact that nearly half the population is aware (H1N1 could be a serious health issue) is a good thing."
Keckley says he was surprised at one finding from the survey, which is that many of those who responded said they did not see the urgency of getting vaccinated and are not associating the virus "as something that could pose a major threat."
That may be, he acknowledged, because precautionary public health messages about washing hands, coughing into one's sleeve, getting vaccinated and not going to work or school while sick have been coming since spring and throughout the summer.
"Maybe people have been anesthetized to the potential threat of this virus," Keckley notes.
Among other significant survey findings:
- Respondents in the Northeast (58%) and the West (56%) are more likely to think H1N1 will not have a major impact on the U.S. But 49% of respondents in the South say they believe it is a major threat.
- Those who are underinsured are less likely to say they will get vaccinated against H1N1 virus than the uninsured.
- While 53% say they plan to get vaccinated, 41% of respondents do not plan to get vaccinated.
- 79% know the symptoms and where they would go to get vaccinated.
- Those who have no health coverage and those who identified themselves as African Americans are more likely than insured or underinsured and those of other racial groups to believe the virus will have a major impact.
- Those who are between the ages of 55 and 64 and those 65 and older are also more likely to plan to get vaccinated.
- 49% said they have a plan where they work or go to school to handle the H1N1 virus. But only 34% of the uninsured say they have such a plan.
Keckley says public health officials have done a good job getting the word around about the potential impact of an H1N1 pandemic, but he says that the days of getting the message out through mainstream media outlets may be over.
That's particularly important for the H1N1 threat, which disproportionately affects younger people than older people, because increasingly, young people don't read a daily newspaper or make a regular habit of watching televised news shows.
Instead, he says, they're more responsive to social media "narrowcasting –tweeting and blogging" messages.
"Huge numbers of people don't come in contact with a news source each day. That's huge."