Ebola in the United States — Public Reactions and Implications

Abstract

Although there had been only two cases of Ebola transmission inside the United States and both patients had survived, a November 2014 opinion poll revealed that the U.S. public ranked Ebola as the third-most-urgent health problem facing the country - just below cost and access and higher than any other disease, including cancer or heart disease, which together account for nearly half of all U.S. deaths each year (see Table S1 in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org). The U.S. public's high ranking of a disease is important because it can influence policy leaders' . . .