Cuts have eliminated more than a dozen US government health-tracking programs

Greenbeard · May 5, 2025

So much for making America healthy again, public health officials are now flying blind in the wake of RFK/DOGE elimination of numerous public health data collection efforts for no apparent reason.

Is America getting healthier or less healthy? Guess we'll never know.

Cuts have eliminated more than a dozen US government health-tracking programs

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s motto is “ Make America Healthy Again,” but government cuts could make it harder to know if that’s happening.

More than a dozen data-gathering programs that track deaths and disease appear to have been eliminated in the tornado of layoffs and proposed budget cuts rolled out in the Trump administration’s first 100 days.

The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, which surveys women across the country, lost its entire staff — about 20 people.

It’s the most comprehensive collection of data on the health behaviors and outcomes before, during and after childbirth. Researchers have been using its data to investigate the nation’s maternal mortality problem.

Recent layoffs also wiped out the staffs collecting data on in vitro fertilizations and abortions.

The CDC eliminated its program on lead poisoning in children, which helped local health departments — through funding and expertise — investigate lead poisoning clusters and find where risk is greatest.

Also gone is the staff for the 23-year-old Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, which had information on concerns including possible cancer clusters and weather-related illnesses.

Transgender status is no longer being recorded in health-tracking systems, including ones focused on violent deaths and on risky behaviors by kids.

The staff and funding seems to have remained intact for a CDC data collection that provides insights into homicides, suicides and accidental deaths involving weapons. But CDC violence-prevention programs that acted on that information were halted. So, too, was work on a system that collects hospital data on nonfatal injuries from causes such as shootings, crashes and drownings.

Also going away, apparently, is the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. The system is designed to pick up information that’s not found in law enforcement statistics. Health officials see that work as important, because not all sexual violence victims go to police.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which tracks job-related illnesses and deaths and makes recommendations on how to prevent them, was gutted by the cuts.

The HHS cuts eliminated the 17-member team responsible for the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, one of the main ways the government measures drug use.

Also axed were the CDC staff working on the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

There are other surveys that look at youth smoking and drug use, including the University of Michigan’s federally funded “Monitoring the Future” survey of schoolkids.

Work to modernize data collection has been derailed. That includes an upgrade to a 22-year-old system that helps local public health departments track diseases and allows CDC to put together a national picture.

Another casualty was the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which tries to predict disease trends.

Mr Person · May 5, 2025

"We won't have COVID cases if we don't test" redux.

rhinefire · May 19, 2025

31% of cancer research was cut. 1 of 5 children at St Jude Hospital die of cancer. Thank you Trump, you pig.

Cuts have eliminated more than a dozen US government health-tracking programs

Greenbeard

Mr Person

A Little Bitter

rhinefire

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