In a recent Health Affairs This Week podcast episode, AcademyHealth CEO Aaron Carroll joins Jeff Byers for a conversation on the consequences of losing access to federal health data and what this means for public health, research, and evidence-based policymaking.
In this episode, Dr. Carroll outlines how data suppression directly affects the ability of researchers, clinicians, and public health professionals to understand and address pressing health challenges, especially those in the areas of maternal health, youth mental health, and chronic disease. It “is not just inconvenient,” he says. “It’s dangerous. If you can't see the full picture, you risk missing problems entirely.”
Dr. Carroll explains the importance of federal health data infrastructure. “So many people's work depends on data that are timely, accessible and comparable across regions and populations. And without it, they can't do basic things like identify gaps in care, track the success of interventions, or evaluate whether policy changes are helping or harming people. So we got teaching, mentoring, grant writing, publishing, caring for people, all of that build on the foundation of evidence,” Dr. Caroll said.
This is why AcademyHealth is taking action and joined a federal lawsuit to restore access to critical health data.
Listen to the full episode here. To learn more about our data lawsuit check out this blog post.
To support AcademyHealth’s efforts to promote data transparency and innovation in health research, you can donate here or text AcademyHealth to 44-321.