The year 2020 was marked by several related crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, deepening economic inequality, and increasingly visible racism and violence against people of color. Did this year change the public’s views on health-related issues?
A 2019 Commonwealth Fund/New York Times/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health survey of Americans’ values related to health care conducted just before the pandemic began found concerns about racial equity, low confidence in the U.S. health care system, support for universal coverage, conflicted views on health insurance reforms, and limited trust in government to solve health care problems.
To evaluate whether people’s values had shifted, we examined 18 polls, including a 2020 repeat of questions included in our 2019 survey, that addressed views of government, health care, and racial equity. CONTINUED
Eric C. Schneider, Robert J. Blendon, John M. Benson & Arnav Shah, Commonwealth Fund
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