The beef industry in the U.S. has prioritized Johne's disease as an issue for investigation. As part of a national study of health and management practices on U.S. cow-calf operations conducted by the National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) in 1997, data and serum samples were collected to provide information to the industry on producer awareness, prevalence, risk factors, and economic impact of infection. A stratified random sample of beef cow-calf operations was selected from 23 states to participate in the study. Questionnaire data were collected from 2713 producers (phase one) and 1190 producers (phase two). Data were weighted to generate population estimates for the inference population of each phase of the study; phase one - operations in the 23 states with 1 or more beef cows, phase 2 - operations in the 23 states with 5 or more beef cows. Study results show that overall the beef producer's awareness of Johne's disease was low with only 7.8% of producers having some knowledge of the disease beyond name recognition. Among those producers that at least recognised the name "Johne's disease" (30.1% of all producers), approximately 2 percent of producers reported a diagnosis of Johne's disease on their operation in the preceding 10 years based on any method of diagnosis. These study results indicate a need for broad industry educational efforts in order to successfully control Johne's disease in the U.S. beef cattle population.