When Data Disappear: Public Health Pays As Policy Strays

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Abstract

On January 20th, 2025, President Trump signed executive orders that limit the ability of public health entities like the CDC to release critical public health data. Public health decision-making relies on real-time data to quantify risks to the public. We compare influenza forecasts of US incident hospitalizations using two models: one uses several data sources routinely collected (until these EOs) and a second using only one data source. We find that the “data rich” model produces an informative trajectory of influenza that can guide public health policy and decision making, while the “data poor” model is vague, uninformative, and unusable for decision-making. Open, readily-available public health data provide reproducible and transparent analyses and interpretations to promote the health and well-being of the US. Public health data is a public good, and thus, we must strive towards a future in which it is never subject to removal or interruption.

Citation

McAndrew, Thomas, Lover, Andrew; Hoyt, Garik; Majumder, Maimuna “When Data Disappear: Public Health Pays As Policy Strays” OSF preprint 10.17605/OSF.IO/MP84K (2025).