President Donald Trump‘s executive actions targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion are making America less healthy and safe, according to a new think tank report that warns they are harming the nation’s public health infrastructure.
According to the analysis conducted by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a confluence of anti-DEI policies, changes to student loan access for medical degrees, and federal cuts under the guise of eliminating “waste and fraud” under the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, which was led by Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, has resulted in the “most significant rollback of public health capacity and infrastructure since the creation of modern disease surveillance systems.”
“The scope of these ideologically driven actions is unprecedented,” reads the report authored by CAP’s government affairs experts Peter Gordon and Alexandra Cogan.
During Trump’s second term, more than 1,700 research grants and other federal grants were terminated, along with major cuts to health equity programs, including a team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that was monitoring maternal mortality, a crisis that is harming Black women disproportionately.
The Trump administration also placed new restrictions on federal student loans for health professions, most notably by having the Department of Education reclassify public health and nursing degrees as “nonprofessional.” As theGrio previously reported, critics of the move say it will cut off the pipeline to health care careers, hurting the economic stability those jobs created, particularly for Black professionals. CAP notes that it will result in “severe economic consequences.”
As an added layer, Trump’s signature tax and spending law, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” made historic cuts to health programs, leading to health care premiums skyrocketing for millions of Americans.
“[It] will cost American taxpayers billions in preventable healthcare expenses while making all communities less safe,” says the CAP report.
The Trump cuts will make it more difficult for public health professionals to implement targeted interventions for things like environmental justice monitoring programs that can provide early warnings of contamination threats, such as the lead poisoning crisis that plagued the majority Black city of Flint, Michigan. CAP says the president’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization and to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has dismantled essential disease surveillance systems, including critical interventions used during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the Trump administration’s targeting of DEI has been largely framed as an ideological and political position championed by Democrats or liberals, CAP points out that cuts to health services and jobs as a result are disproportionately hurting Black and Brown communities, which ultimately will hurt everyone.
“The current administration, which has proposed gutting programs without transparency, is creating a less prepared, less informed public health system that will miss emerging threats—creating the potential for them to become national emergencies,” says the group. “These actions threaten the nation’s capacity to detect disease outbreaks, respond effectively to health emergencies, and protect vulnerable communities.”
This is also happening as conspiracy theories and misinformation spread online through social media. When you consider this and the lack of “early warning systems,” CAP warns that the federal government will be operating blindly and an already “confused” public will be “less prepared to make decisions in the best interest of themselves, their families, and their communities.”
“Deprived of the data needed to guide interventions, the next disease outbreak or pandemic will spread for longer before detection; environmental contamination will go unnoticed until children bear the consequences; and maternal mortality will continue rising, particularly in underserved areas,” says the report. “This policy-driven ignorance will cost lives and money.”
