Title says it all. The rights to data are not exclusive to the universities and agencies that are hosting it, your work and ownership of it counts too.

Is anyone else having issues accessing their grants? I finally received an email that a message has been attached to my grant (no communication with our CDC PO since early Jan) and the site has been crashing on me the past hour. Anyone else?

I didn't realize DHS was federal US data but it is funded by USAID.

DHS is no longer taking new data requests, you can still download all data from old requests. If you have them, download all data ASAP.

For some background on me: I am an Epidemiologist at a local health department who works as part of the Communicable Disease team managing all reportable diseases in our county. Think ABCs of reportable diseases, that’s me! I’ve been a full-time Epi now for about 1.5 years!

Now the sad part: I was working up an Aseptic/Viral Meningitis case today of an eight year old kiddo. Case passed away yesterday from a (preliminary - not yet confirmed) disseminated fungal infection which was mostly likely suspected due to the fungus being detected in both CSF and blood cultures. Oof. deep breath These cases always stick with me, especially when they’re kids and I typically don’t take my work home with me but I will be thinking about this little boy all weekend and I just hope his family is doing okay.

This isn’t the first death I’ve experienced…we got a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Case was a happy and healthy bus driver who went from completely normal to nothing in a month. A month!! I’ve lost a little kiddo to influenza and a 2 week old to another reportable disease last year. A recent case of Legionnaires passed away last week.

We try to do our best to manage reportable diseases and protect the public butttt mannnn when I get a death, it’s like a mental sucker punch! And with the world being so against public health post-COVID, it really is an uphill battle.

So, this is just a reminder to take care of yourselves and understand that you are doing the best that you can! Love and support to all public health professionals!

I wanted to tell y'all that I'm downloading the entire Household Pulse Survey from the Census since it asks about sexual orientation along with a few health and health related variables. If anyone knows of a group of people who are pooling data, please let me know, thank you!

Edit 1: and gender identity!

Edit 2: the site is now "down for maintenance" but I managed to get 2023 and 2024 in their entirety.

Edit 3: I managed to get 2022 using wayback machine, hoping to get the rest this way.

If so, can anyone post an article there?

Sorry if this has already been covered, but god guys this is so scary.

Hello, trying to get in to Public health, any leads on how to go about? Not sure if it's similar anywhere but I'm in Ontario

Using my throwaway to try not to get doxxed. I just got word through my local health department supervisors that at 5pm today all federal websites will be going dark. We have no idea what this means. They have already started rerouting or removing links to some topics but it is rumored likely that “all federal websites” are going to be pulled down by 5pm today 1/31/2025. I hope i am wrong, not trying to spread fear, just information given that we have ~2 hours to preserve vital information. Federal employees, i stand with you. Hold the line. Defend your oath to the Constitution. You are Patriots

Eta: yes, its 5 pm and there are still sites up. That dosent discount the fact that a lot of health data is disappearing and access to many sites we use to do public health work are restricted. My information was off, used language that implied all websites are going down, which may have caused panic that I apologize for. I felt it was my duty to share that information so that we could at least prepare for the worst

I recently found this survey (from 2003) that showcases the wide disparities between what parents think their teens believe about sex and what the teens actually believe. I'm looking for a similar study but something preferably within the last 5-10 years but can't seem to find one. Anyone got a lead on a source that might have one?

Just stumbled on this and it’s actually pretty wild. It breaks down how we’ve normalized overeating and the real impact it’s having on public health. Definitely makes you think: Quantitative Impacts of Normalizing Gluttony: Case Study of the USA

Back in the day, smoking was everywhere—on TV, in restaurants, even in hospitals. But once public health campaigns started framing it as not just unhealthy but socially unacceptable, smoking rates plummeted. Now, look at how we treat overeating - instead of addressing it as a serious health crisis, we’ve normalized it, even celebrated it, through movements like body positivity and fat acceptance.

But should we rethink this approach? If we successfully used moral and ethical arguments to curb smoking, could the same be done for overeating? Is it time to talk about gluttony—not as a personal failing, but as a public health issue?

Download as much as you can.

I’ve had a few people reach out and ask for code to reproduce the SVI since it was taken down yesterday.

I have been pointing folks to this excellent R package findSVI, which provides functionality to reproduce the data set over multiple years and for specific states.

You can check it out here: https://github.com/heli-xu/findSVI

Edit: looks like the census api is down too. We may have to rely on other back ups as this package queries the census api. Things are looking dark.

Has anyone saved prior MMWRs?

My own experience with the MMWRs was they demonstrated clear evidence of the damage of COVID-19, and I am aware that it's not something that favorably reflects on the administration's pandemic response. With all the data purging, I am a bit concerned about retroactive editing, so I wondered if anyone has preserved prior MMWR releases.

Does your health department have data or best practices or communications guides for transgender people or LGBT people? Download and save that data. The current federal administration will not allow any funding from the federal government to entities that have this data available.

Download it. Save it. Keep it. If you rely on something from CDC or other federal pages, download and save it now. (For this you likely have hours. Not days. Some of it is already gone.)

State resources will likely be forcibly removed in the coming days.

(This is the executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/ but the memos for organizations coming out of this are much more severe.)

Working on downloading everything I can think of. Got SVI and EJI stuff. I also use ADI as a good SVI complement that is not CDC created. Also got places and justice40 from the previous poster!

Downloading relevant MMWRs. Anything else big you recommend going ahead and getting? I can’t believe this is even a thing happening. Going to go get census files too.

I was on tiktok, as one usually is, and I wanted to get more info from students actually in university for public health, so i looked up public health major in the search bar. Most of the comments on these tiktok's weng something like "my mph is useless now" and "just an environmental and public health major practicing our new future careers as balloonists after being pulled out of the WHO." all of these extremely worried me bc i really want to pursue a career in public health, either community health or health policy analysis. Is the future of public health really that dire or is everybody overreacting?

If this passes the implications for health parity, mortality, and safe provision of medical care are profound, all of that will go out the window. This will significantly impact birthrates too.

I want to tell and swear but I think my nerves are too shot for that (and forming a coherent thought).

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/722

Now that the CDC's SVI has gone dark, it is only a matter of time before who knows what else goes too. I've created a Google drive to backup the SVI datasets, as well as others that may be imminently impacted. The link contains the following datasets:

• 2018 and 2022 county and tract CDC SVI
• 2024 tract and block EJScreen
• 2022 tract Justice40 (I think there is a more recent version?)
• 2020 - 2024 tract, ZCTA, and county CDC PLACES

Some are .csv files and others are .shp files that will need to be opened in a GIS. Here is the link to the drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MKJAycPciIW99KOM-mTZdC4MBMGrt45v

US citizen here wanting do get a PhD in Epidemiology. My research interests are in LGBTQ+ populations and cancer. With the current landscape of my country and the worries of funding, I am trying to figure out if I should expand my search for programs outside the US.

To answer some questions I assume I will get. Yes, I have an MPH in Epi. Yes, my goal was at some point to work outside of the US anyway. Yes, I have research experience. I am an older student and have a husband that would more than likely split time, so this is also something to consider in my decision.

My question to this community is would you stay in US for the PhD? If so, why? If not, why not? My next question is are there programs internationally you are aware of that I should look into? And lastly, funding seems to be less likely to get as an international student, how did some of you go about that?

I really appreciate any and all advice.

Hi everyone,

I’m considering a career that blends data, research, and public health impact, and I’d love some guidance from those in the field.

Background & Interests

• I used to be an analytical lead for a Fortune 500 company before joining the Army. While the work was technically engaging, I was miserable.
• Now, I work in behavioral health (68X in the Army). I enjoy helping people and connecting them with resources, but I’m realizing that working directly with people full-time may not be for me.
• I miss figuring out systems using data—identifying patterns, conducting analysis, and developing solutions based on insights.
• Ideally, I’d like a research-heavy role focused on developing products, analyzing behavioral data, and presenting findings to drive decision-making.

Main Questions 1. Is an MPH (Master of Public Health) the best degree for data-focused roles in public health?

    - I see that some MPH programs have epidemiology, biostatistics, or health informatics concentrations. Do these provide strong technical skills?
    - Would an MS in biostatistics, health informatics, or data science be a better fit?

2.	What types of roles exist at the intersection of public health and data?
    - I’ve looked into positions like public health analyst, epidemiologist, health data scientist, and policy researcher—any insights on these?
    - Are there specific skills (e.g., coding, statistical modeling, GIS, policy analysis) that would make me more competitive?

3.	If you work in this space, what’s your experience?
    - What degree did you get, and what do you do now?
    - Any advice for someone wanting to combine data, research, and public health impact in a meaningful way?

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Thanks in advance for any advice.

edit

• is there any books or YouTube channels you reccomend?

With everything going on now, I was thinking about volunteering in the public health sector and hope some of you have an idea o about organizations I can reach out to. I know federal jobs and grants are in jeopardy and there may be censorship when it comes to research. I studied pre-med in Germany, have a biology degree and work in HIM right now (focus on oncology data). Not a trained epidemiologist. Thank you for the work you all do!