Only 20% of U.S. adults have a positive view of the pharmaceutical industry, garnering the lowest positive vibes among Americans in Gallup’s latest survey on peoples’ opinions of industries in America. About 1 in 3 Americans feel positively about health care in the U.S., on par with publishing and the electric/gas industries — on the lower end of these findings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By far, the top-perceived industry in the U.S. is agriculture and farming, taking the first spot with 64% of Americans’ positive views. Restaurants and the computer sector get 52% positives, although Gallup points out that restaurants’ positive perceptions substantially fell by 9 percentage points.

Similarly, U.S. consumers’ views on grocery stores, beloved in the pandemic era, fell by 8 percentage points to 33% positive, down from 41% last year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the full run-down of reputations by sector from Gallup’s 2024 Work and Education survey conducted in August 2024.

Calling out some interesting findings in here tracking consumers’ sentiments about the various industries that touch peoples’ lives every day…

See that the media and interactive segments of movie, TV, internet, and phone all cluster around 35-36% of positive sentiment.

Sharp gains were made in the sports segments, rising overall from 31% in 2023 to 42% positive in 2024. Gallup points out partisan differences which are striking — “more GOP-affiliated Americans still have a negative (41%) than positive (32%) view of the industry,” the analysis notes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health Populi’s Hot Points: Clearly, the sharp declines in grocery and restaurants reflect consumers’ negative feelings about food prices, both at-home and eating-out segments and spending.

In this last chart, we can see the boomerang shift of Americans’ views of the grocery industry in the past few years, from its apex in 2020 in the stay-at-home phase of COVID-19’s public health crisis. Grocery stores were front-line survival storefronts, deemed as essential business for our daily living and basic needs for all health citizens.

“Typically, Americans have evaluated the grocery industry much more favorably than unfavorably, averaging 52% positive and 21% negative ratings since 2001. However, those views have changed at a time of higher food prices and lower confidence in grocery store food safety,” Gallup explains in the survey report, alluding to the recent Boar’s Head listeria food safety event.

In this 2024 survey, for the first time in Gallup’s trends on grocers, Americans gave a negative (47%) versus positive (33%) rating of the industry. That 17-point increase in negative ratings of the grocery industry is one of the largest year-to-year increases Gallup has measured, they note.

That pharma and health care rank relatively low in the American consumer mindset in August 2024 is concerning but not surprising given the public’s perception of too-high drug prices (impacting pharma among both Democrats and Republicans) and patients-as-payors’ stresses about medical costs and debt, continued access challenges, and perennial patient safety concerns.