Your Candidates-Your Health: Presidential Primaries 2008 kicked off primary season with a four-state ad campaign and new public opinion data.
Ads promoting this voter education initiative ran in local newspapers just before the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary. The ads encouraged voters to contact the presidential candidates at http://www.yourcandidatesyourhealth.org/ to urge them to tell all voters their positions on health and research.
Similar ads will run January 13 in PARADE magazine in South Carolina and Nevada newspapers, in advance of those state primaries. The South Carolina ad appears as this month's insert.
Research!America and 27 partner organizations in Your Candidates-Your Health invited all presidential candidates to answer 17 questions about health, research and related issues. Our latest national poll asked voters similar questions to those we asked the candidates.
While health care has been widely discussed as a campaign issue, the poll found that health research and related issues are also significant factors in voters' minds. Fully 82% of Americans say they are more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who supports increased funding for research to improve health. More than half (55%) are dissatisfied with the quality of health care in America, and 72% are dissatisfied with the cost of health care. Eight in 10 (81%) say our health care system should be redesigned to encourage prevention of illness. Nearly half (45%) think we must increase investment in the National Institutes of Health as a critical strategy to improve health care, and 54% think funding should be increased for core programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improve public health.
"These findings send a clear message that voters care very much about health research as a part of health care issues generally," said Mary Woolley, president, Research!America. "Candidates for president must not overlook the importance of research in addressing the overall health issues our nation faces."
See the list of partners supporting Your Candidates-Your Health: Presidential Primaries 2008 in this month's insert and online, at www.yourcandidatesyourhealth.org, where you can read the full poll findings and urge the presidential candidates to tell all Americans where they stand on health and research!