Americans heeding H1N1 advice, poll finds

Americans are taking swine flu worries to heart, a Harvard survey reports today, with two-thirds saying they are washing their hands more than usual and half planning to stay home if they or a family member should fall ill. But a smaller proportion are concerned about catching the virus than last week.

Three-quarters of the people responding to the poll say they are following news of the outbreak of swine flu, also called H1N1, the novel strain that first emerged in Mexico and then spread around the world over the last two weeks. A national sample of 1,013 adults were questioned by telephone on Tuesday and Wednesday, repeating a similar survey conducted a week earlier.

Six in 10 people said this week they were not worried that they or a family member might catch the flu, up from about half of respondents last week. Half of parents with school-age children are still concerned, compared to a third of adults without children in school. Half of parents also say their children's schools are not telling them what the schools are doing to prevent spread of the flu.

Beyond hand-washing and planning to stay at home, other measures to avoid being infected by the flu virus included avoiding air travel and public gathering places, reported by about a quarter of respondents, and staying away from people with flu-like symptoms, practiced by about a third of respondents.

More than 80 percent give public health officials high marks for keeping Americans informed about the outbreak. It appears more of them are paying close attention: This week twice as many -- four in ten respondents -- recognize "H1N1" as the same thing as swine flu.