Despite constant reassurances from federal officials that Canada's vaccination program is on track, only about one-third of Canadians feel the country is well-prepared to deal with the H1N1 pandemic.
The finding, part of a massive survey of attitudes in 24 nations by the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research (WIN), places us seventh from the bottom.
Even Mexico, where the flu first showed up last spring, has a higher confidence level.
The poll also shows a slight loss of confidence in public-health preparations since the last time the question was posed. In July, about 40% of Canadians were confident in our readiness for an outbreak.
That result doesn't spell panic, though, because most Canadians aren't actually all that alarmed about H1N1.
Only about one-quarter of Canadians feel personally concerned about the influenza pandemic. That's up from one in five during the summer, but "we're still in a good space" psychologically, said Dave Scholz, vice-president of Leger Marketing, which ran the Canadian portion of the global survey. Leger Marketing is a founding partner of WIN. About half of those surveyed termed themselves "a little concerned."
Overall, Canada is following a worldwide trend of becoming a little more worried about the pandemic as it stretches into the fall, and a little less comfortable about our ability to deal with it, Scholz said.
"We've heard media reports about huge lineups, we've see the lineups, we've seen frustrations that people have had," Scholz said. "There is a sense of being a little unprepared.
"We're also seeing the fact that for most Canadians if they want to get a flu vaccine they haven't gotten it yet."
Residents of Manitoba and Saskatchewan are more concerned about the flu than other Canadians -- a result, Scholz surmised, of severe illness reported among First Nations in the summer and early fall.
But they also think governments are more prepared.
By a wide margin, women are more worried about H1N1 than are men, and less apt to conclude the nation is well-girded against the virus.
And young people tend to be far less worried than older Canadians about the personal impact of the illness.
The survey results didn't faze Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer.
"Canada is probably in the best situation of any country," he said, referring to its combination of vaccine rollout, preventive information campaigns and health resources such as antiviral medication.
"The response across this country has been quite extraordinary -- the ability to prevent millions of illnesses, and tens of thousands of hospitalizations, has been quite a remarkable achievement," he said.
The Canadian survey was conducted Nov. 9 among 1,530 people. It is considered accurate to within 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
CHRISTINA.SPENCER@SUNMEDIA.CA
