American Public Opinion and Health Care

Seating consensus in context, the 21 chapters here range in length from 14 to 42 pages and cover such timely topics as attitudes about stem-cell research, emerging infectious diseases, and Obama's 2009–10 health-care reform effort. The text is enhanced by the liberal use of tables and figures to illustrate current trends, attitudes, and opinions regarding U.S. health care. The editors and contributors are leaders in U.S. polling organizations and have expertise in both health policy and the conduct of survey research; data are taken from a wide variety of well-known sources like the Kaiser Family Foundation, Gallup, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, and other national news organizations. Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions about the quality of the data presented and are provided with suggested instructional sources to that end. Each chapter also includes references to the sources cited in the text and others, and this feature gives readers a wealth of avenues for further reading and research. An index provides additional access to both the text and the tables and figures. BOTTOM LINE The abundance of high-quality information presented here regarding Americans' opinions and attitudes about health care at the beginning of the 21st century is a welcome addition to the collections of both academic and public libraries supporting researchers with an eye toward prevailing public attitudes.—Sarah Sutton, Texas A&M Univ. Lib., Corpus Christi