Public health communications take hit in federal agency layoffs
Widespread layoffs this week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services included employees at federal health agencies responsible for communicating with the public, a move that is likely to harm public health, according to experts.
An April 2 New York Times article reported that the layoffs affected press officers and other communications staff at agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institutes of Health. The communications offices were responsible for disseminating news about a wide range of health issues, from drug and food recalls to infectious disease outbreaks.
Gillian SteelFisher, principal research scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and one of the experts quoted in the article, said that the layoffs represented “a profound loss for public health, and for the public’s health.”
“Good public health is a partnership with the public,” she said. “It’s about helping people make decisions and take actions that protect them and their loved ones, and to do that, fundamentally, you have to be able to talk to people.”
Read the New York Times article: Kennedy Guts Teams That Share Health Information With the Public
