Friday, January 31, 2025, several sets of data from the federal government were offline. The slaughtered data sets included national national surveys, clues and dashboards of widely used and large -scale data that shed light on research, policies and media coverage on health care and public health. For example, several surveys and sets of centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were offline on Friday and Saturday, with messages simply saying that the page “was not found”. The home census home page has displayed an error message, but data.census.gov – where many data sets can be downloaded – worked.
On Sunday February 2, 2025, some of the destination pages began to come back online – now with a warning message: “The CDC website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s executive orders”, suggest that ‘There could be future changes. In some cases, survey data files are back online and seem intact, but the survey documentation (questionnaires and cod books), which researchers use to analyze data files, have remained offline . Some related reports have also remained offline. It is not yet clear if all data sets and their documentation that are offline will come back or remain online, and if they do, what changes, if necessary, will be made. It also remains to be seen what changes can be made to future data collection efforts.
The deletion or modification of these data sources seems to be in response to decrees published by President Trump on his first day in power describing the perspectives and the approach of administration to sex and gender and on equity racial and equity and inclusion (DEI), as as a break on foreign assistance. A memorandum Office of Personal Management (OPM) on the first departments and agencies led by the OO to “eliminate all external media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) which instill or promoted the gender ideology” and “Remove any final or pending document, directives, orders, regulations, documents, forms, communications, declarations and plans that instill or promote gender ideology. Another OPM memorandum has also ordered the departments and agencies to “delete all external media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) from Deia offices”. None of these decrees or the MEMOS OPM specifically mention data sets or survey data.
Federal surveys play a key role in the health surveillance system, which helps direct initiatives to combat some of the most urgent health conditions and the problems faced by the country. For example, one of the affected data sets is the CDC (BRFSS) behavioral risk factor monitoring system, which is one of the most used national health surveys and has been continuing for about 40 years. Data files for all years have been temporarily offline and to date have been republished, but without questionnaires or codes. BRFSS is described on a federal website as a source of “state information on health risk behavior, preventive health practices and access to health care mainly linked to chronic diseases and injuries ». The survey has been used for decades to inform decision -makers, the media and the public on a wide range of health subjects, such as obesity rates, access to breast cancer screening, vaccination rates and vaccination rates and the share of people with pre -existing conditions. With sampling in each state, BrfSS data is particularly useful for understanding health problems in low population states and rural areas.
By examining the KFF archives on the basic BRFSS questionnaire, he did not include detailed questions about sexual orientation or gender identity. However, in recent years, Brfss has offered an optional module on sexual orientation and gender identity, which has been implemented in most states. These additional data have been used by KFF to show that adults who identify themselves as transgender are more likely than cisgenres adults to be uninsured, to feel depression and to declare to be in poor health. When writing these lines, the Brfss data file is back online and seems to be intact, including the question of gender identity, although the investigation documentation is not online.
Another of the sets of data on offline was the CDC for young risky behaviors (YRBS), which, since 1990, has followed the behavior of secondary students who can influence health and social results, such as smoking, the Drug and alcohol consumption, and eating and exercise habits. Like Brfss, the destination page and the associated documents were offline but, when writing this article, returned without questionnaires or cod books. This survey is particularly useful because it asks questions to adolescents directly, rather than monitoring their parents, who may be incapable or do not want to answer questions precisely. The KFF analysis of the YRBS data has shown that the great sharing of adolescents experience persistent sadness and despair, and that adolescent girls experienced a strong increase in suicidal ideas during the pandemic. Recently, the YRBS questioned respondents about their sexual orientation and their gender identity, and the data were used to highlight substantial mental health disparities among LGBTQ +secondary students, compared to their non -LGBTQ +peers .
Several of the other sets of deleted data (at least temporarily) concern HIV / AIDS in the United States as well as global health efforts in the world in low and intermediate income countries, including, but without limiting itself:
- CDC Atlasplus: An interactive database with approximately 15 years of monitoring data for HIV, viral hepatitis, MST and TB, as well as data on social determinants of health. (Data relating to the Ryan White HIV / AIDS program also remains offline to date, including reports and databases.)
- PEPFAR data dashboards: PEPFAR, the full online data portal of the overall HIV / AIDS program for budgets and program expenses by country and category of services, among other variables.
- Databases of demographic and health surveys (DHS): a continuous set of representative household surveys nationally with population, health, HIV and nutrition data from more than 90 countries, data downloads .
- Foreignsitance.Gov: The American government’s website with all foreign assistance data by country, budget, expenses, program, going up more than two decades and created to increase the transparency of the aid (this website is now back online).
Other dashboards and federal indices were also offline, at least temporarily, including, but without limiting themselves: the regional health resources files (a healthcare data resources, the Hospitals and economic indicators), the social vulnerability index of the CDC (socioeconomic data based on the census used for planning, response and recovery of disasters) and the environmental justice index (data at the census used for Identify the populations faced by environmental, social and negative health factors).
Although this is not the objective of this thesis, other health information intended for the public has also been deleted or modified, which could have implications for access and reception of services and other interventions.
