2023 Opinion Poll on Health and Medical Research and Innovation

Research Australia’s 2023 public opinion poll was conducted by Roy Morgan with 1,005 Australians aged 18 and over, recruited from an online panel between 26 June and 7 July 2023 and weighted by age, sex and area (margin of error ±3.1%). Respondents rated 28 Australian Government spending priorities: improving hospitals and the health care system ranked first (88.4%), and more funding for health and medical research (78.0%) remained in the top ten, as it has in every poll since 2003. Four in ten respondents reported being affected by climate change in the last five years, and half (50.2%) believed research into the effects of climate change on human health should receive a higher priority, a proportion that has declined steadily since the question was first asked in 2020. Nearly 8 in 10 would agree to their tissue being placed in a biobank, while willingness to share de-identified health information has dropped across all purposes since 2016. Over a quarter (27.1%) reported having arthritis. The poll also examined healthy ageing, mitochondrial donation, public knowledge of behavioural risk factors for chronic disease, and the value of research to the health system. The proportion reporting no donation to health and medical research in the last 12 months has risen from less than one third in 2019 to over half.