On July 10, 2025, the Pew Research Center published results from its poll of 5,085 American men and women titled, “Americans’ Views on Who Influences Health Policy and Which Health Issues to Prioritize.”
In one part of the poll, participants were presented with a list of eight health issues and asked to indicate which issues they believe are a “major problem,” “minor problem,” or “not a problem at all.” The results can be seen in the figure below.
Roughly 80-85% of poll participants reported a belief that cancer, overweight and obesity, heart disease, and opioid addiction are “major problems.” Alzheimer’s disease came in fifth on the list with 64% of Americans saying it is a “major problem,” followed by loneliness at 55%, bird flu at 26%, and measles at 25%.
The Pew Research Center also split the results by political affiliation of poll participants. On average, the same proportions of Democrats and Republicans agreed that cancer, overweight and obesity, heart disease, and opioid addiction are “major problems.” This consensus across party lines is encouraging to see. However, for loneliness, bird flu, and measles, more Democrats than Republicans reported a belief that these are “major problems.”
Later in the poll, the Pew Research Center asked participants about the importance of the federal government in overseeing certain areas of healthcare. Six areas were presented, including testing drug safety, tracking the spread of contagious diseases, investigating health insurance fraud, making rules about food labels, and developing programs that place doctors and nurses in rural communities.
The other healthcare area that the Pew Research Center asked about was women’s health. Specifically, Pew asked participants how important they thought it was for the federal government to “study health issues that affect women and girls.”
The results to this question, which can be seen in the figure below, were as follows:
* 45% of Americans said it is extremely important for the federal government to study health issues that affect women and girls.
* 32% of Americans said it is very important for the federal government to study health issues that affect women and girls.
* 18% of Americans said it is somewhat important for the federal government to study health issues that affect women and girls.
* 5% of Americans say it is not at all important for the federal government to study health issues that affect women and girls.
In the text of the report, the Pew Research Center also revealed a sex difference in belief about the federal government studying girls’ and women’s health. Fifty percent of women and 41% of men said that they believe it is extremely important for the federal government to study health issues that affect women and girls – a 9% difference between the sexes.
The difference between Democrats and Republicans was even larger. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats and 32% of Republicans said that they believe it is extremely important for the federal government to study health issues that affect women and girls – a 27% difference between the political parties.
Curious minds are likely to wonder how poll participants’ views on the federal government studying women’s health compare to their views on the federal government studying men’s health. For example, did the male and female participants demonstrate the same 9% sex differential as they did when asked about women’s health? Was the 27% differential between Democrats and Republicans also replicated when the poll participants were asked about men’s health?
Unfortunately, we do not know the answers to these questions, because the Pew Research Center did not ask poll participants about their opinions on the role of the federal government in studying boys’ and men’s health issues. This omission was particularly strange considering that more males than females die from four of the top five health problems that Pew asked about earlier in their poll. These four health problems are cancer, diseases of the heart, obesity, and opioid and other drug-related overdoses. As shown in the graph below, males comprise 52.7% of all deaths from cancer, 55.3% of deaths from disease of the heart, 53.8% of deaths from obesity, and 69.6% of deaths from drug overdoses.
When one also considers, for example, the greater number of male than female suicides, homicides, fatal occupational injuries, unintentional drownings, and alcohol-induced deaths, which culminate in a significantly shorter life expectancyfor American males than females, Pew’s omission of men’s health from the poll is even more perplexing.
Pew’s omission of men’s health from the poll might have been purposeful. However, their omission might also reflect a genuine lack of awareness that coincides with an inability to connect specific epidemiological results, which, together, build the broader concept of men’s health. Within public health and biomedical research circles, this lack of conceptualization of men’s health as a broad healthcare area can be seen in the graph below, which I published in a paperin 2020. The graph shows the number of times the phrases “men’s health” and “women’s health” appear in the titles or abstracts of research articles indexed in PubMed. Between 1970 and 2018, the phrase “men’s health” appeared in the titles or abstracts of 1,555 articles indexed in PubMed, whereas the phrase “women’s health” appeared in the titles or abstracts of 14,501 articles indexed in PubMed – an approximate 10-fold difference.
Moving forward, polling organizations who survey public opinion about health issues affecting Americans ought to ask about women’s and men’s health. Both areas are important and warrant attention. In terms of broad healthcare policy, giving asymmetrical attention to one sex over the other is neither just nor is it a healthy long-term strategy for a flourishing society. As Dr. Warren Farrell says, “When only one sex wins, both sexes lose.”
Let us hope that in future polls we will finally learn where the general public stands regarding their views on the broad area of men’s health. Remarkably, after all the billions of dollars poured into health research and polling over the years, we still do not have clear answers to such simple questions.
Related Content at The Nuzzo Letter
SUPPORT THE NUZZO LETTER
If you appreciated this content, please consider supporting The Nuzzo Letter with a one-time or recurring donation. Your support is greatly appreciated. It helps me to continue to work on independent research projects and fight for my evidence-based discourse. To donate, click the DonorBox logo. In two simple steps, you can donate using ApplePay, PayPal, or another service. Thank you.
Thanks for reading The Nuzzo Letter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
