56% of People in United States Say Government Should Spend More to Fight HIV/AIDS, Survey Says

Fifty-six percent of people in the United States believe that the government should spend more to combat the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Reuters reports (Reuters, 6/2). Kaiser Family Foundation researchers designed the survey, titled "Survey of Americans on HIV/AIDS: Part One -- Global HIV/AIDS," and analyzed the results. Researchers from Princeton Survey Research Associates between March 15 and May 11 conducted phone interviews among a nationally representative sample of 2,902 respondents age 18 and older. Trend data was obtained through the addition of three questions to an omnibus survey conducted by ICR/International Communications Research between May 7 and May 12 among 1,013 adults age 18 or older ("Survey of Americans on HIV/AIDS: Part One -- Global HIV/AIDS," June 2004). Researchers found that 56% of participants said that the country needs to be spending more on both domestic and international HIV/AIDS efforts, compared with 27% who said that the government is spending "the right amount" and 9% who said that too much is being spent to combat the epidemic, according to Reuters. In addition, researchers found that 55% of respondents said that spending more on HIV/AIDS prevention in developing nations would "lead to meaningful progress," compared with 40% of participants in a 2002 survey, Reuters reports.

Additional Findings
The survey also showed that 36% of participants named AIDS as the "most urgent health problem facing the world today"; 41% of participants named cancer as the top issue, Reuters reports (Reuters, 6/2). The survey -- which was released by Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman at the Global Health Council's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. -- found that 71% of U.S. residents said that the media is their primary source of HIV/AIDS information, followed by 9% of participants who said that doctors and other health care providers are their main source of HIV/AIDS information (Kaiser Family Foundation release, 6/2). The survey results released on Wednesday are the first segment of a three-part project, with the other two parts being released later in the summer. The second phase, which will be released later in June, will focus on U.S. residents' views of and experiences with HIV testing, and the third section -- scheduled for release in August -- will provide a more "in-depth" report on participants' views and experiences with HIV, including differences between demographic groups ("Survey of Americans on HIV/AIDS: Part One -- Global HIV/AIDS," June 2004).

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