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In collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science, The Milbank Quarterly invited population health researchers to submit stories of how they have personally been impacted by the Trump administration’s cuts to federal funding for health research. We encourage you to read the accounts below and share you own by submitting up to 400 words via this form.
What Keeps Us Up at Night: Reflections from a Lost Generation of ScientistsElisabeth Stelson, PhD, MSW, LSW, MPH, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Matthew Lee, PhD, MS, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dept. of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Mary Kathryn Poole, PhD, MPH, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dept. of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthThis May the National Institutes of Health (NIH) prematurely terminated the training grant funding for our postdoctoral fellowships as part of the Trump administration’s attack on Harvard. We have a collective 23 years of advanced training for careers as health equity researchers — careers which may now never be fully realized. As junior scholars, we are sharing what keeps us up at night to sound the alarm that the US may soon lose an entire generation of scientists. This will stall scientific advancements, hinder training of future scientists and public health professionals, and ultimately jeopardize Americans’ health.Mary Kathryn: I had planned to apply for nutrition and food security research positions after my fellowship ends. Now, I wonder: Will the career I had envisioned be attainable amid anticipated layoffs, hiring freezes, and ineligibility for federal research fundings at Harvard? Charitable food programs with which I collaborate in my community-based research have also been terminated or scaled back due to funding losses. I want to make America a healthy place for families to live and thrive, but how can this be achieved when essential programs no longer exist?Matt: I have long dreamt of a career educating students in public health, for which I have pedagogically trained by teaching classes on applied statistics and program evaluation, among other topics. With the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education, this career feels unlikely. In order to pay rent, I am exploring alternatives. Now, I wonder: If I leave this field, can I ever come back? Who will teach the next generation of public health researchers and professionals if we are not there to do it? Beth: I will start a faculty position this fall, for which I feel fortunate. I research how to improve work environments to retain health care workers. But who will fund this research? Ninety-four percent of the staff at National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health — the primary funder of this type of research —has been fired. The budget for the NIH, which funded my research until my grant was prematurely terminated, may be cut by a proposed 40%. Now, I wonder: How can I do this new job and meaningfully improve worker health without research investment?Junior colleagues nationwide face similar career uncertainty that threatens to disrupt the nation’s research-training pipeline. If our generation is forced to leave the field or cannot do our jobs, our country will not know how to improve Americans’ health nor be able to train professionals to protect it.Fighting for the FutureMichael Green, Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University School of MedicineI am a rising fifth year PhD candidate in Population Health Sciences. When I applied to graduate schools in 2020 as an undergraduate senior, equity was deemed a priority in health research, and the many socio-demographic inequities (race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.) that have been at the forefront of population health sciences for years were getting a national spotlight. I was cautiously hopeful to enter this environment, seeing institutions of higher education claim an interest in understanding health inequities and training and advancing scholars to uplift groups suffering unequally. Now, in 2025, the topics that I was told were a long-term institutional priority are divisive ones that I am told we must not only reframe how we speak about but also pivot away from the funding opportunities which are key to our advancement..Current leadership at these institutions do not appear to be socio-demographically different than 2020, but the opportunities which were generated to promote people to leadership positions (e.g., Diversity Supplements, funding announcements for specific populations) are being terminated mid-project. Formerly, federal funding was a huge way to support a health equity research portfolio but now this is not an option and there is no comparable alternative. As a PhD student who has been in his program the longest amongst his peers, I am asked by my colleagues whether it is even worth pursuing a PhD at all nearly every week. Prospective students also reach out with more frequency, whether it be because of lost job opportunities or other programs that are shrinking their incoming class sizes.None of us know the future, but the burden of answering these questions remains. Trainees and early career researchers are often the easiest to reach in the population health research landscape. We are at a stage of our careers where we are trying to establish ourselves, build our networks, and develop credibility. We have more time to focus on training and development opposed to project administration and team management. Now we must not only figure out not only what the immediate future holds for us, but also how to support people who lean on us for advice in a time where there can be an absence of public leadership because of fear of retribution. Every day I wake up having to fight the overwhelming feeling of dread and pointlessness that are the intention of the current chaos. I must also fight for a future where the principles of health equity that led me to pursue a career in population health sciences is still possible.Evidence for Equitable Policy at RiskRita Hamad, MD, PhD, MPH, MS, Associate Professor and Director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research (SPHERE) Center, Harvard School of Public HealthAs Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving.” Despite the overwhelming hurdles presented by the Trump administration’s recent cancellation of federal funding for health research, I am inspired daily by these words and the drive and resilience of my research team and colleagues.I am an Associate Professor and Director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center (SPHERE) at the Harvard School of Public Health. Our Center examines how social policies—especially US safety net programs—shape health equity. SPHERE includes four postdoctoral fellows, three research staff, and numerous graduate student mentees, all committed to tackling structural factors that perpetuate health inequities.Devastating federal actions have put our entire research mission at risk. As part of the cancellation of all federal funding to Harvard, my three NIH grants were abruptly terminated. I had to painfully notify collaborators across the country that our longstanding partnerships were ending. These grants supported projects using large datasets and interdisciplinary methods to answer essential questions: How does neighborhood disadvantage drive dementia risk? How does school racial segregation shape cardiovascular health over the life course? What were the mental health impacts of pandemic-era health and social policies?These projects have far-reaching potential to guide policymakers seeking to repair America’s frayed social safety net. Instead, research with direct relevance to millions of Americans now hangs in the balance. Postdoctoral fellows and staff face the real threat of layoffs unless I can secure new funding almost overnight. Students and postdocs—brilliant, empathic individuals who chose this path to make a difference—see their hopes and future careers jeopardized.The stakes could not be higher: massive social policy changes threaten to strip critical supports from millions of Americans. Our research is urgently needed to provide an evidence base for equitable policy decisions, but policy is proceeding in an evidence vacuum, detached from data and expertise, seemingly driven instead by short-sighted desires to shrink government and concentrate political power. At the same time, our team is perfectly positioned to evaluate the impacts of the policy shifts underway, helping inform future policies that will hopefully seek to repair this damage. Our work is needed now more than ever. Even if we must crawl, we will not be deterred from our goal of informing evidence-based policies to achieve health equity.
What Keeps Us Up at Night: Reflections from a Lost Generation of Scientists
Elisabeth Stelson, PhD, MSW, LSW, MPH, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Matthew Lee, PhD, MS, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dept. of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Mary Kathryn Poole, PhD, MPH, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dept. of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
This May the National Institutes of Health (NIH) prematurely terminated the training grant funding for our postdoctoral fellowships as part of the Trump administration’s attack on Harvard. We have a collective 23 years of advanced training for careers as health equity researchers — careers which may now never be fully realized. As junior scholars, we are sharing what keeps us up at night to sound the alarm that the US may soon lose an entire generation of scientists. This will stall scientific advancements, hinder training of future scientists and public health professionals, and ultimately jeopardize Americans’ health.
Mary Kathryn: I had planned to apply for nutrition and food security research positions after my fellowship ends. Now, I wonder: Will the career I had envisioned be attainable amid anticipated layoffs, hiring freezes, and ineligibility for federal research fundings at Harvard? Charitable food programs with which I collaborate in my community-based research have also been terminated or scaled back due to funding losses. I want to make America a healthy place for families to live and thrive, but how can this be achieved when essential programs no longer exist?
Matt: I have long dreamt of a career educating students in public health, for which I have pedagogically trained by teaching classes on applied statistics and program evaluation, among other topics. With the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education, this career feels unlikely. In order to pay rent, I am exploring alternatives. Now, I wonder: If I leave this field, can I ever come back? Who will teach the next generation of public health researchers and professionals if we are not there to do it?
Beth: I will start a faculty position this fall, for which I feel fortunate. I research how to improve work environments to retain health care workers. But who will fund this research? Ninety-four percent of the staff at National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health — the primary funder of this type of research —has been fired. The budget for the NIH, which funded my research until my grant was prematurely terminated, may be cut by a proposed 40%. Now, I wonder: How can I do this new job and meaningfully improve worker health without research investment?
Junior colleagues nationwide face similar career uncertainty that threatens to disrupt the nation’s research-training pipeline. If our generation is forced to leave the field or cannot do our jobs, our country will not know how to improve Americans’ health nor be able to train professionals to protect it.
Fighting for the Future
Michael Green, Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University School of MedicineI am a rising fifth year PhD candidate in Population Health Sciences. When I applied to graduate schools in 2020 as an undergraduate senior, equity was deemed a priority in health research, and the many socio-demographic inequities (race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.) that have been at the forefront of population health sciences for years were getting a national spotlight. I was cautiously hopeful to enter this environment, seeing institutions of higher education claim an interest in understanding health inequities and training and advancing scholars to uplift groups suffering unequally. Now, in 2025, the topics that I was told were a long-term institutional priority are divisive ones that I am told we must not only reframe how we speak about but also pivot away from the funding opportunities which are key to our advancement..
Current leadership at these institutions do not appear to be socio-demographically different than 2020, but the opportunities which were generated to promote people to leadership positions (e.g., Diversity Supplements, funding announcements for specific populations) are being terminated mid-project. Formerly, federal funding was a huge way to support a health equity research portfolio but now this is not an option and there is no comparable alternative. As a PhD student who has been in his program the longest amongst his peers, I am asked by my colleagues whether it is even worth pursuing a PhD at all nearly every week. Prospective students also reach out with more frequency, whether it be because of lost job opportunities or other programs that are shrinking their incoming class sizes.
None of us know the future, but the burden of answering these questions remains. Trainees and early career researchers are often the easiest to reach in the population health research landscape. We are at a stage of our careers where we are trying to establish ourselves, build our networks, and develop credibility. We have more time to focus on training and development opposed to project administration and team management. Now we must not only figure out not only what the immediate future holds for us, but also how to support people who lean on us for advice in a time where there can be an absence of public leadership because of fear of retribution. Every day I wake up having to fight the overwhelming feeling of dread and pointlessness that are the intention of the current chaos. I must also fight for a future where the principles of health equity that led me to pursue a career in population health sciences is still possible.
Evidence for Equitable Policy at Risk
Rita Hamad, MD, PhD, MPH, MS, Associate Professor and Director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research (SPHERE) Center, Harvard School of Public Health
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving.” Despite the overwhelming hurdles presented by the Trump administration’s recent cancellation of federal funding for health research, I am inspired daily by these words and the drive and resilience of my research team and colleagues.
I am an Associate Professor and Director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center (SPHERE) at the Harvard School of Public Health. Our Center examines how social policies—especially US safety net programs—shape health equity. SPHERE includes four postdoctoral fellows, three research staff, and numerous graduate student mentees, all committed to tackling structural factors that perpetuate health inequities.
Devastating federal actions have put our entire research mission at risk. As part of the cancellation of all federal funding to Harvard, my three NIH grants were abruptly terminated. I had to painfully notify collaborators across the country that our longstanding partnerships were ending. These grants supported projects using large datasets and interdisciplinary methods to answer essential questions: How does neighborhood disadvantage drive dementia risk? How does school racial segregation shape cardiovascular health over the life course? What were the mental health impacts of pandemic-era health and social policies?
These projects have far-reaching potential to guide policymakers seeking to repair America’s frayed social safety net. Instead, research with direct relevance to millions of Americans now hangs in the balance. Postdoctoral fellows and staff face the real threat of layoffs unless I can secure new funding almost overnight. Students and postdocs—brilliant, empathic individuals who chose this path to make a difference—see their hopes and future careers jeopardized.
The stakes could not be higher: massive social policy changes threaten to strip critical supports from millions of Americans. Our research is urgently needed to provide an evidence base for equitable policy decisions, but policy is proceeding in an evidence vacuum, detached from data and expertise, seemingly driven instead by short-sighted desires to shrink government and concentrate political power. At the same time, our team is perfectly positioned to evaluate the impacts of the policy shifts underway, helping inform future policies that will hopefully seek to repair this damage. Our work is needed now more than ever. Even if we must crawl, we will not be deterred from our goal of informing evidence-based policies to achieve health equity.
