\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump\u2019s budget would cut funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by 53%, eliminating 61 programs and laying off another 16% of health agency staff, according to a new report \u2013 moves that would drastically reduce disease prevention and fuel more chronic illness, public health leaders say.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot lose this,\u201d said Joseph Kanter, CEO of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). \u201cThis is crucial to the health of every person in every community across this country, whether they realize it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Federal cuts are already reverberating throughout the US. The Trump administration has clawed back more than $12bn from public health budgets.<\/p>\n
There have been delays in releasing funds already appropriated by Congress, which means local programs have had to shutter even when they were supposed to be funded. More than 20,000 employees have left health agencies in the past eight months because of layoffs, firings and resignations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re facing really significant threats to our ability to invest in chronic disease prevention with what\u2019s been happening these last few months,\u201d said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (Naccho).<\/p>\n
The public health system in the US is fragmented by state, but it is underpinned by funding and support from the CDC. Some 80% of the CDC\u2019s funding flows to state, local, territorial, and tribal health departments.<\/p>\n
\u201cCuts to federal funding are cuts to state and local public health budgets,\u201d said J Nadine Gracia, president and CEO of the Trust for America\u2019s Health (TFAH), a nonpartisan, non-profit public health policy research and advocacy organization.<\/p>\n
The organization has released reports on trends in state and federal funding for public health for more than two decades.<\/p>\n
But this year\u2019s TFAH report is different as the US undergoes seismic shifts in health policy and priority, including funding cuts, staff layoffs, funding clawbacks and agency reorganizations, Gracia said in a media briefing with Kanter and Freeman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe risks to our nation\u2019s health security are real and increasing,\u201d Gracia said.<\/p>\n
The new budget would end programs on cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, obesity, global and domestic HIV\/AIDS, global immunization, and substance use.<\/p>\n
The program on emergency preparedness for public health \u2013 the primary source of federal funding for state and local emergency preparedness \u2013 would be more than halved. Another 40 programs at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) would also be cut.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s budget would move about 26% of the lost funding to two newly proposed divisions within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): the administration for a healthy America and the office of strategy.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not clear what those divisions would do, and the restructuring would reduce HHS staff by 16%.<\/p>\n
Entire divisions at the CDC have already been laid off, including those working on smoking cessation, drowning prevention, and tribal health.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200bIn addition to the funding that CDC supports, CDC provides invaluable technical assistance and expert guidance,\u201d Kanter said.<\/p>\n
As the former local health director in New Orleans and former state health director in Louisiana, he said: \u201cI can name many, many outbreaks and other public health threats that I lacked the capacity to fully respond to, or the experts needed on my own within my agency, and relied on the CDC for expert opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those still working in public health have found their resources and time stretched by new challenges under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Health departments across the country have spent the past few weeks scrambling to ensure Covid vaccines that were widely accessible only months ago are available again now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis backtracking feels like the worst possible thing that can happen for public health,\u201d Freeman said.<\/p>\n
The US spends $4.9tn on healthcare each year, and 90% of that spending goes to chronic and mental health conditions. Public health works to prevent and manage these diseases \u201cfor a tiny fraction\u201d of those costs, in order to keep the spending from inflating even more, Freeman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need prevention to work well, because the acute care system cannot withstand a large increase in sick patients across the country,\u201d Kanter said.<\/p>\n
Gracia noted that \u201cthe concern of reduced life expectancy [is] a sobering possibility, given that the US already has the lowest life expectancy among high-income nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rural areas are expected to be hit disproportionately hard by the shortages, as will communities that have been marginalized because of racism and poverty.<\/p>\n
Some programs, like substance use services, are funded largely through the CDC. Last year, overdose deaths dropped by nearly 27% \u2013 encouraging but \u201cfragile\u201d progress that is now at risk, Gracia said.<\/p>\n
In 2026, the United States, as well as Mexico and Canada, will host the Fifa World Cup, the largest gathering in the world. Public health officials are preparing for potential outbreaks that could arrive with the international event.<\/p>\n
Yet the CDC\u2019s work tracking global health threats has also been slashed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s much easier to stop an outbreak when it\u2019s small or limited to a particular region of one country than when it grows and crosses borders, and the CDC is so good at that. They\u2019re so good that very few people know about it,\u201d Kanter said \u2013 because many outbreaks are contained before they spread further.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a health officer from a city that receives a lot of international travel, I\u2019ve been deeply, deeply thankful for that work. I think that work is in jeopardy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US House of Representatives would cut $1.7bn from the CDC\u2019s budget, but the US Senate has proposed less steep cuts, potentially funding the agency close to previous levels.<\/p>\n
Public health \u201cis widely appreciated when people know about it\u201d, Kanter said.<\/p>\n
And \u201cthere remain thousands and thousands of deeply committed public health professionals who show up every day with one singular goal: to help make other people\u2019s lives better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Donald Trump\u2019s budget would cut funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by 53%, eliminating 61 programs and laying off another 16% of health agency staff, according to a new report \u2013 moves that would drastically reduce disease prevention and fuel more chronic illness, public health leaders say. \u201cWe cannot lose<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[2132,4548,562,964,320,1713,120,1242,773,81,71,1952],"class_list":{"0":"post-23766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cdc","9":"tag-chronic","10":"tag-cuts","11":"tag-donald","12":"tag-experts","13":"tag-illness","14":"tag-national","15":"tag-security","16":"tag-threaten","17":"tag-trump","18":"tag-trumps","19":"tag-warn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}