The threat of mpox has returned, but public knowledge about it has declined

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. This summer, 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 alerton 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.

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 surveyfinds that only 1 in 20 Americans are worried about contracting mpox in the next three months, down from 21% in August 2022. In addition, fewer than 1 in 10 are worried that they or their families will contract mpox. Fewer than 1 in 5 people know that mpox is less contagious than COVID-19, down from 41% in August 2022; nearly two-thirds are not sure.

The survey also reports that just a third of people know that men who have sex with men are at a higher risk of infection with mpox, down from nearly two-thirds in August 2022. Less than half know that a vaccine for mpox exists, down from 61% in August 2022. And fewer people know that it's false to say that getting a COVID-19 vaccine increases your chances of getting mpox, down from 71%.

"The speed with which the public learned needed information about mpox in the summer of 2022 was a tribute to effective communication by the public health community," says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) and director of the survey. "That same expertise should now be deployed to ensure that those at risk remember mpox's symptoms, modes of transmission, and the protective power of vaccination."

Read more at Annenberg Public Policy Center.