Table 1.

Percent of United States policymakers who sought counsel on public health issues from various information sources at least once over the past year: September 15–November 2, 2023.

Potential source of counsel on public health issues	Local government elected policymakers	Local government managers	State and local government civil servants
Other officials in your government	81.7	88.2	49.2
Grassroots/community leaders	69.8	72.9	41.2
Government officials outside your government	66.0	79.5	36.9
Business leaders	60.9	62.0	32.0
Professional association staff	53.0	62.4	42.5
Lobbyists/interest group leaders	26.7	31.7	20.4
Bioethicists	14.5	6.9	16.0

Note: This only includes policymakers who faced a challenging public health decision, which was 84.2 % of elected policymakers, 89.0 % of managers, and 89.1 % of civil servants. This is why the numbers for bioethicists are slightly different than Fig. 1a. Results for elected policymakers and managers are weighted to increase sample representativeness.