Though substantial proportions of the public and practicing physicians report that they have had personal experience with medical errors, neither group has the sense of urgency expressed by many national organizations. To advance their agenda, national groups need to convince physicians, in particular, that the current proposals for reducing errors will be very effective.

Using data from 13 surveys of the public, this article compares the public's response to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Ontario (specifically, Toronto), the other Canadian provinces, and the United States, which had substantial differences in the number of SARS cases. Findings suggest that, even at a relatively low level of spread among the population, the SARS outbreak had a significant psychological and economic impact. They also suggest that the success of efforts to educate the public about the risk of SARS and appropriate precautions was mixed. Some of the community-wide problems with SARS might have been avoided with better communication by public health officials and clinicians.

Through an analysis of recent data on adults' and children's computer use and experiences, this DataWatch shows that use of computers and the Internet is widespread and that significant percentages of the public are already using the Internet to get health information. The surveys also show that the Internet is already a useful vehicle for reaching large numbers of lower-income, less-educated, and minority Americans. However, a substantial digital divide continues to characterize computer and Internet use, with lower-income blacks especially affected. Implications for the future of health communication on the Internet also are explored.

Our results highlight the need for better plans for emergency communication and evacuation of low-income and disabled citizens in future disasters and shed light on choices facing policymakers in planning for the long-term health care needs of vulnerable populations.

We determined the distances to nine pulsars by parallax measurements using the NRAO Very Long Baseline Array, doubling the number of pulsars with accurate distance measurements. Broadband phase modeling was used to calibrate the varying dispersive effects of the ionosphere and remove the resulting phase errors from the phase-referenced VLBI data. The resulting parallaxes have a typical accuracy of 100 microarcseconds or better, yielding distances measurements as accurate as 2%. We also report new proper motion measurements of these pulsars, accurate to 400 µas yr −1 or better.

We report the results of a national survey conducted to help public health offi cials understand the public's response to community mitigation interventions for a severe outbreak of pandemic infl uenza. Survey results suggest that if community mitigation measures are instituted, most respondents would comply with recommendations but would be challenged to do so if their income or job were severely compromised. The results also indicate that community mitigation measures could cause problems for persons with lower incomes and for racial and ethnic minorities. Twentyfour percent of respondents said that they would not have anyone available to take care of them if they became sick with pandemic infl uenza. Given these results, planning and public engagement will be needed to encourage the public to be prepared.

States compared to ten other countries.

This article presents the views of Americans on what the government's future role should be in regulating or overseeing the growing sales of dietary supplements for health purposes. Based on results of multiple national opinion surveys, including the views of both users and nonusers of supplements, we found that a substantial percentage of Americans surveyed reported that they regularly take dietary supplements as a part of their routine health regimen. However, they reported that they do not discuss the use of dietary supplements with their physicians because they believe that the physicians know little or nothing about these products and may be biased against them. Many users felt so strongly about the potential health benefits of some of these products that they reported that they would continue to take them even if they were shown to be ineffective in scientifically conducted clinical studies. However, there also was broad public support for increased government regulation of these products. We found that a majority of Americans surveyed supported the following: to require that the Food and Drug Administration review the safety of new dietary supplements prior to their sale; to provide increased authority to remove from sale those products shown to be unsafe; and to increase government regulation to ensure that advertising claims about the health benefits of dietary supplements are true.