Poll: Americans View Opioids, Fentanyl as Nation's Top Health Threat

Americans see opioids and fentanyl as the number one health threat in the country, according to an Axios-Ipsos Health Index survey published Thursday.

The survey, taken February 17 to 21 among 1,213 adults, found that after opioids and fentanyl, Americans view obesity as the nation’s second greatest health threat.

Broken down by party affiliation, it found Republicans care more about these issues, while Democrats care far more about Americans’ access to guns.

Thirty-seven percent of Republicans say opioids and fentanyl are “the #1 threat to American public health” compared to 17 percent of Democrats. Similarly, 25 percent of Republicans say obesity is the number one health threat compared to 17 percent of Democrats.

Democrats, by contrast, view gun or firearm access as the nation’s most pressing health issue. Thirty-five percent of Democrats say it is the greatest health threat compared to four percent of Republicans.

Overall, 26 percent of Americans believe opioids and fentanyl are the top health threat, followed by obesity at 21 percent, gun or firearm access at 17 percent, cancer at 12 percent, coronavirus and COVID-19 at six percent, unsafe roads or driving at four percent, smoking and tobacco products at three percent, and alcohol abuse at two percent.

The survey comes as fentanyl has become a focal point of immigration talks in Congress. Border officials are encountering illicit fentanyl at the southern border at a rate that has only increased since President Joe Biden took office. And while Democrats have argued that more drug seizures mean border officials are doing their jobs even better than before and tackling the issue, National Institutes of Health data shows deaths involving synthetic opioids, and primarily involving fentanyl specifically, have in fact sharply risen in recent years.

In terms of actual causes of death versus what Americans perceive to be the top health threats, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data from 2021 found heart disease — of which obesity is a well-documented risk factor — to be the top killer, followed by cancer and COVID-19.

Comparing Republicans’ and Democrats’ top concerns to government health data from 2021, 70,601 deaths involved synthetic opioids (primarily fentanyl) compared to 48,830 deaths involving firearms.

In January, the White House acknowledged the concern over deaths caused by drug overdose, pointing to provisional data showing 107,477 such deaths in a 12-month period through August 2022. Most of those, the Biden administration’s Dr. Rahul Gupta said, were related to illegal synthetic versions of drugs, such as fentanyl and methamphetamine, often found in combination with other drugs, including cocaine and heroin.

The survey found that less formally educated Americans, i.e., those with high school diplomas or less, were more concerned with opioids, while gun concerns correlated with residential population. Americans living in urban and suburban areas were more than twice as likely to care about guns than rural Americans.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.