The law's broad language threatens the state’s ability to prevent illness and death from infectious diseases, and, if replicated elsewhere, it could unravel decades of progress in public health.
As CDC systems are dismantled, the idea of a coordinated national response to a health emergency seems as fictional as zombies themselves.
The longer and more continuously we can monitor patterns, whether in a person’s physiology or a community’s wastewater, the better able we are able to assess health, even if each individual measurement is imperfect.
Several factors may explain a drop in reported cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, but the national data are not complete. Here's what to make of it.
The dilemma for outside public health experts is whether to try to preserve public trust in the CDC (and therefore, in the long run, its ability to recover) or to strip away its legitimacy to prevent the public from being misled.
The resignations and public statements of senior leaders from the CDC signal that the nation’s premier public health agency is now guided by ideology, rather than science. These events raise two questions: Why do we need a CDC? What happens if we do not have one we can trust?
In 2015, NYC saw the largest Legionnaires' disease outbreak in city history. Officials responded with new regulations for inspecting cooling towers, where the bacteria originated. Ten years later, NYC has another outbreak.
Friday’s shooting at the CDC follows years of backlash against public health since the pandemic. Bound by a commitment to protect people, public health workers aren’t giving up.
AI has improved performance in industries where data are abundant and decisions need to be fast and accurate, such as finance and logistics. The same tools could help the public health system improve accuracy and act faster.
As new diseases emerge more rapidly, and climate change increases other threats to health, officials may be able to use AI to practice public health with greater speed, precision, and effectiveness.