It has been two years since the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency over an outbreak of mpox, a disease endemic to Africa that had spread to scores of countries. Now, in the summer of 2024, a deadlier version of the infectious disease has spread from the Democratic Republic of Congo to other African nations, the strain that originally hit the United States has shown signs of a resurgence, and this week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a new alert on mpox to health care providers. But while the American public quickly learned about the disease during the summer of 2022, as the number of cases declined and media attention waned, much of that knowledge appears to have been lost, according to new survey data from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
In a nationally representative survey of about 1,500 U.S. empaneled adults conducted in July 2024, the policy center finds that knowledge about mpox – which increased from July to August 2022 – has declined, along with fear of the disease (which was previously called monkeypox).
This wave of the Annenberg Science and Public Health (ASAPH) knowledge survey finds that: Only 1 in 20 Americans (5%) are worried about contracting mpox in the next three months, down from 21% in August 2022. In addition, fewer than 1 in 10 (9%) are worried that they or their families will contract mpox. Fewer than 1 in 5 people (17%) know that mpox is less contagious than.