This guest post is by Patrick Breysse, PhD, MHS, professor emeritus at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health Science and Engineering and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health.

The Trump administration’s ongoing cuts to federal agencies are having a devastating effect on U.S. public health, with canceled programs, fired workers and severe funding reductions undercutting essential, life-saving work. Among the offices that have come under threat is NCEH's Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice. 

The division is a unique resource to the country. There is no other federal public health unit specifically established to support the environmental health programs across the country in state, territorial, local and tribal public health departments.

For 45 years, the division has played a vital role in reducing environmental harms and improving health for countless Americans. Hundreds of scientists and public health staff in health departments are supported in whole or part by its funds. Division staff develop guidance, provide technical support and are on 24-hour standby to assist in emergency response. 

Programs in the division address serious health dangers, notably for children. One such danger is lead poisoning. Thanks to work developed and supported by the division, blood lead levels in children across the U.S. have fallen, a major achievement that will improve lifelong health and well-being for hundreds of thousands of people.

Also notable, the division worked with officials in North Carolina in 2023 to identify contaminated applesauce as a source of elevated blood lead levels in children, leading to a recall that protected many from consuming the products. In addition, the division helped address the 2014 Flint, Michigan, water crisis, in which thousands of children were exposed to lead-contaminated drinking water.

Other vital work through the NCEH Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice includes:

• the Health Studies Program, which is the only federal program that works with states, clinical partners and the public to investigate unusual patterns of disease, including cancer clusters;

• the Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, which is used to build public health capacity and expertise in environmental health surveillance. Established with bipartisan congressional support, the program drives information-driven decisions that can be used by health professionals and the general public to improve public health;

• work that targets environmental asthma triggers, including guidance for parents and surveillance of asthma rates, which has been shown to decrease emergency department visits and related hospitalizations; and

• the Safe Water Program, which funds drinking water safety programs at health departments. Without these resources, well users are at increased risk for exposure to a wide range of contaminants such as arsenic and pesticides.

The division is a unique resource to the country. There is no other federal public health unit specifically established to support the environmental health programs across the country in state, territorial, local and tribal public health departments. 

Unfortunately, when we should be celebrating the successes of these programs and increasing their funding, we are instead being forced to defend the work itself. Now is not the time to turn back the clock — cuts to these programs are not a way to make America healthier. 

Photo by Soumen Hazra, courtesy iStockphoto