Subject: People Patterns 
Date: Published: 10/1/91 (45 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    People Patterns
    ----
    By Alan L. Otten

[31 lines irrelevant to AIDS have been omitted.  -- sysop]

    Health-Care Costs Top
    `Worry List' Again
    MEDICAL COSTS, the federal budget deficit and unemployment
 are of increasing public concern, a Conference Board survey
 finds.
    The survey, conducted in July in 5,000 representative
 households, asked people to rank the seriousness of 22
 economic and social problems.  Almost nine out of 10 agreed
 the cost of medical care was a "most serious" or "serious"
 problem, putting it at the top of the list of 22.
    Closely following on the list were drug abuse, the budget
 deficit, crime, unemployment and AIDS.  The least worrisome
 problems were the threat of nuclear war, race relations and
 smoking.
    Medical costs topped the list in an identical poll
 conducted in May 1990, but the latest results showed a small
 increase in public anxiety on the issue during the
 intervening 14 months.
    The biggest increase in uneasiness, however, came over
 unemployment, which moved up to fifth place this year from
 12th place in 1990; almost 80% of the 1991 respondents ranked
 it "most serious" or "serious," compared with only 66% in the
 earlier poll.
    Apprehensions had also heightened since the 1990 poll over
 the deficit, the savings and loan crisis and AIDS.  Though
 still high on the worry list, drug abuse, crime, pollution
 and the homeless were viewed slightly less seriously than
 before.
    For most issues, concern tended to rise with age and to
 drop with income.  There were comparatively few regional
 differences.

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