One of few health reform topics all Americans agree on is the issue of prevention. The majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans rank prevention ahead of most other health reform initiatives, according to a survey conducted for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The top health reform priority among Americans is insurance reform: specifically, prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage because of age, medical history, or pre-existing condition, scoring 7.9 out of 10 based on the survey methodology.

In second place in the survey among Americans’ health reform priorities were to invest in more prevention to help people stay healthy, and to provide tax credits to small businesses to buy health insurance for employees. Each of the #2 priorities scored 7.7 out of 10 in the survey.

Specific prevention issues are shown in the chart. Most important in Americans’ minds are to have a state-of-the-art public health system, loan forgiveness for public health professionals to shore up the supply of this labor force, and creating a Public Health Investment Fund targeting nutrition and exercise in schools and communities. Another function of this Fund would be to “test new approaches to staying healthy so people would have the information they need to make their own best decisions about how to be healthy and prevent disease.”

Health Populi’s Hot Points: Listen up, Congressfolk and others who make health policy in the U.S.: 2 in 3 Americans said they’d be more likely to support a member of Congress who votes for prevention or it would make no difference in their vote, versus 32% who said they’d be less likely to vote for this politician.

Most Americans are pro-prevention in health reform. When it comes to public health and personal participation in health and health care, we’re passed the tipping point of convincing people the merits of health promotion. Time to get on with this strategy that Americans, across-the-political-spectrum, favor.