According to the data from 2025, some 16 percent of respondents said that rising health care costs were the most important health issue facing the United States. Cancer ranked second on the list with 15 percent. Issues with healthcare costsCurrently, the most urgent problem facing American healthcare is the high costs of care. The high expense of healthcare may deter people from getting the appropriate treatment when they need medical care or cause them to completely forego preventative care visits. Many Americans reported that they may skip prescription doses or refrain from taking medication as prescribed due to financial concerns. Such health-related behavior can result in major health problems, which may raise the long-term cost of care. Inflation, medical debt, and unforeseen medical expenses have all added to the burden that health costs are placing on household income. Gun violence issueThe gun violence epidemic has plagued the United States over the past few years, yet very little has been done to address the issue. In recent years, gun violence has become the leading cause of death among American children and teens. Even though more than half of Americans are in favor of tougher gun control regulations, there is little political will to strongly reform the current gun law. Gun violence has a deep traumatic impact on survivors and society, it is developing into a major public health crisis in the United States.

This special topic poll, conducted April 30 to May 6, 1996, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. This poll sought Americans' views on the most important problems facing the United States, their local communities and their own families. Respondents rated the public schools, crime, and drug problems at the national and local levels, their level of optimism about their own future and that of the country, and the reasons they felt that way. Respondents were asked whether they were better off financially than their parents were at their age, whether they expected their own children to be better off financially than they were, and whether the American Dream was still possible for most people. Respondents then compared their expectations about life to their actual experiences in areas such as job security, financial earnings, employment benefits, job opportunities, health care benefits, retirement savings, and leisure time. A series of questions asked whether the United States was in a long-term economic and moral decline, whether the country's main problems were caused more by a lack of economic opportunity or a lack of morality, and whether the United States was still the best country in the world. Additional topics covered immigration policy and the extent to which respondents trusted the federal, state, and local governments. Demographic variables included respondents' sex, age, race, education level, marital status, household income, political party affiliation, political philosophy, voter registration and participation history, labor union membership, the presence of children in the household, whether these children attended a public school, and the employment status of respondents and their spouses. telephone interviewThe data available for download are not weighted and users will need to weight the data prior to analysis.The data collection was produced by Chilton Research Services of Radnor, PA. Original reports using these data may be found via the ABC News Polling Unit Website.According to the data collection instrument, code 3 in the variable Q909 (Education Level) included respondents who answered that they had attended a technical school.The original data file contained four records per case and was reformatted into a data file with one record per case. To protect respondent confidentiality, respondent names were removed from the data file.The CASEID variable was created for use with online analysis. The data contain a weight variable (WEIGHT) that should be used in analyzing the data. This poll consists of "standard" national representative samples of the adult population with sample balancing of sex, race, age, and education. Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the household who last had a birthday and who was at home at the time of interview. Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States. Datasets: DS1: ABC News Listening to America Poll, May 1996

Abstract (en): This poll, fielded April 15-18, 2004, is part of a series of monthly polls that solicit public opinion on a range of political and social issues. Views were sought on the campaign against terrorism, the war with Iraq, and President George W. Bush and his handling of the presidency and issues such as the economy, education, Social Security, foreign affairs, and health insurance. Respondents were asked about the condition of the national economy, whether the country was going in the right or wrong direction, whether most Americans were better or worse off financially than they were in 2001 when Bush became president, their level of concern that they or a household member would lose their job in the next year, and whether recent price increases in gasoline had caused them any financial hardship. Several questions asked how closely respondents were following the 2004 presidential campaign, whether they would vote for President Bush, Democratic candidate John Kerry, or Independent candidate Ralph Nader, the strength of their support for Bush or Kerry, which candidate could be trusted to deal with the main problems facing the nation in the next few years, and the importance of issues such as the economy, the situation in Iraq, and same-sex marriage in their vote. Respondents were also polled on whether the war with Iraq was worth fighting, whether it contributed to the long-term security of the United States, whether the number of United States military casualties in Iraq so far was acceptable, whether military forces in Iraq should be increased, and whether they should remain until civil order was restored in Iraq, even if it meant continued United States military casualties. Other questions asked how closely respondents were following the news about the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, whether the government did all it reasonably could to try to prevent the terrorist attacks, whether the Bush administration was doing a better job handling intelligence about terrorist threats since the attacks, and whether President George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton should bear any personal responsibility for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Opinions were also solicited on whether the Bush administration had a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq, whether the United States should proceed with its plans to transfer political power to a temporary government in Iraq on June 30, 2004, and whether this transfer would be symbolic or a real change of power. Additional topics addressed the effects of the result of the war with Iraq on the stability of the Middle East and the strength of the United States position in the world. Background information includes sex, age, education, ethnicity, marital status, religion, employment status, household income, social class, political orientation, political party affiliation, number of children living in the household, whether the respondent or a household member was currently serving in the military or was a military veteran, labor union membership, and voter registration and participation history. Persons aged 18 and over living in households with telephones in the contiguous 48 United States. Households were selected by random-digit dialing. Within households, the respondent selected was the adult living in the household who last had a birthday and who was home at the time of the interview. Additional information about sampling, interviewing, weighting, and sampling error may be found in the codebook.The data are provided as an SPSS portable file.This collection has not been processed by ICPSR staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this collection in essentially the same form in which they were received. When appropriate, documentation has been converted to Portable Document Format (PDF), data files have been converted to non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to ensure respondents' anonymity.Produced by Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch, Horsham, PA, 2004.