THE HARRIS POLL #31, June 17, 1998

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A new Harris Poll shows a big increase in the prestige of doctors who rise to the top of a list of 17 professions and occupations, and achieve their highest score since 1977. This trend may reflect the public’s increasing dislike of managed care and a perception that doctors are often the patients’ advocates in disputes about what treatments managed care plans will provide.

The proportion of the public who see doctors as having "very great prestige" is now up to 61%, compared to 52% a year ago and 50% in 1992.

No other profession or occupation has shown nearly as big a change since last year, but four occupations show increases of four or more percentage points:

• scientists, up from 51% to 55%;
• teachers, up from 49% to 53%;
• police officers, up from 36% to 41%
• military officers, up from 29% to 34%; and
• lawyers, up from 19% to 23%.

These are the results of a Harris Poll of 950 adults surveyed between May 15 and May 19, 1998.

In the new poll, the top rankings go to doctors (#1), scientists (#2), teachers (#3) and the clergy (#4). The profession/occupations at the bottom of the list, with the least prestige are union leaders, journalists, and accountants. However, entertainers (a surprise?), business executives and bankers are also near the bottom of the list.

"I am going to read off a number of different occupations. For each, would you tell me if you feel it is an occupation of very great prestige, considerable prestige, some prestige or hardly any prestige at all?"

* No trend; NA not asked

This Harris Poll was conducted by telephone within the United States between May 15 to 19, among a nationwide cross section of 950 adults. Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with a sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is difficult or impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

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