Archives: Press Releases

Press Release on health-related topics.

Combined Deaths from Alcohol, Drugs and Suicide Declined by 16% in 2024

New Report Highlights How Progress is at Risk Amid Federal Workforce and Funding Cuts; Special Feature on Suicide Sheds Light on Disparities

(Washington, D.C. – June 2, 2026) – The death rate from alcohol-induced, drug overdose, and suicide causes were each down significantly in the United States in 2024 for the first time since 1999 (when datasets were initially published), and provisional data for 2025 signals this positive trend has continued.

A new report from Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) explores what’s behind these recent downward trends, which demographic groups are still experiencing high rates of death from these causes, and how federal workforce and funding cuts are putting progress at risk.

Pain in the Nation 2026: The Epidemics of Alcohol, Drug, and Suicide Deaths, which examines data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal sources, finds that the combined age-adjusted rate of deaths from alcohol, drugs, and suicide declined by 16 percent in 2024, building on a decrease of 4 percent in 2023.  Specifically, alcohol-induced mortality declined by 4 percent, drug overdose mortality by 26 percent, and suicide mortality by 3 percent.

Most states saw improvements in their combined rates as well: 45 states and the District of Columbia had lower rates compared to 2023, four states had higher rates (Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming), and one state stayed the same (Nebraska) in 2024.

Cuts to public health workforce and funding, as well as uncertainty surrounding long-standing federal programs and grants, significantly threaten this progress. For example, the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Injury Center), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Veterans Affairs health care staff, and 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth services all experienced cuts or eliminations, despite the critical role these programs have in reducing deaths from these causes.

“Sustaining and building on recent progress requires the federal government to invest even more in programs that reduce and prevent harm—not cut them—while also investing in the skilled workforce and modern data systems necessary to deliver and evaluate those programs effectively,” said Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, President and CEO of TFAH. “We are also seeing specific groups of people not experiencing the same progress, especially when it comes to deaths from suicide, meaning we need to do even more to build strong policies and programs that help to improve everyone’s mental health and well-being,”

The report examines the strategies, policies, and programs that have helped drive the recent decline in mortality, including:

  • Creating and sustaining new federal programs and infrastructure, including prevention grants such as SAMHSA’s Garrett Lee Smith program (2004) and the CDC’s Comprehensive Suicide Prevention program (2020) and Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences through Data to Action (2023).
  • Investments in data systems, like CDC’s Overdose Data to Action and the National Violent Death Reporting System, have allowed health officials to track emerging trends by geographic, demographic, and drug type metrics to guide local, state, and national responses and to prevent overdoses and deaths in real time in communities in need.
  • A growing focus on the drivers of substance misuse and poor mental health through prevention and early intervention policies, including improving social, environmental, and economic conditions; expanding resilience programs in schools; and increasing access to social and mental health services for children and families.


Pain in the Nation includes a special feature on suicide, which was the 10th leading cause of death in 2024 and the second leading cause of death for people ages 10–14, 15–24, and 25–35. Key findings related to suicide include:

  • Suicide rates across nearly all racial and ethnic groups were lower in 2024, after peaks in 2022 or 2023. Despite this progress, American Indian and Alaska Native people consistently have the highest suicide rate of any race/ethnicity.
  • Historically, Black youth have had relatively low suicide mortality rates compared to their peers, but rates have risen at an alarming pace in recent decades, increasing 144 percent from 2007 to 2020.
  • Suicide rates are higher in rural areas compared with urban areas and have increased at a faster rate over the last two decades. The most recent data available, from 2022, show that rural areas had a suicide rate 41 percent higher than urban areas.
  • While the rate of suicide deaths is unknown for LGBTQ populations, research consistently find higher rates of mental health issues, substance use, and suicidal behaviors for LGBTQ individuals compared with heterosexual individuals.

The report also calls for a sustained commitment to primary prevention programs and investments, and includes recommendations on actions the Administration, Congress and federal agencies should take, such as:

  • Investing in prevention and conditions that promote health
    • Spend behavioral health funds and carry out investments as directed by Congress.
    • Provide robust funding for CDC’s Injury Center and maintain the vital workforce necessary to fulfill the Center’s activities.
    • Support policies and programs that reduce adverse childhood experiences and the impact of trauma and promote positive childhood experiences.
  • Reducing overdose risk and access to lethal means of suicide
    • Support policies to reduce overdose and bloodborne infection.
    • Support efforts to limit access to lethal means of suicide, such as safe storage of medications and firearms.
  • Transforming the mental health and substance use prevention system
    • Maintain SAMHSA’s funding and critical workforce and bolster the continuum of crisis intervention programs and supports, such as the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
    • Restore Medicaid funding and eligibility to prevent losses in mental health and substance use healthcare.
    • Promote equity in mental health, with a specialized workforce and targeted services to reduce disparities in access and outcome.

Read the full report

Preparedness for Public Health Emergencies at Risk Amid Federal Funding and Workforce Instability, New Report Finds

Ready or Not 2026 finds wide variation in state preparedness and warns that federal disruption could weaken emergency readiness nationwide

(Washington, DC – May 7, 2026) – Amid deep federal staffing cuts, grant terminations, and other far-reaching changes to the federal public health system, a new report from Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) finds wide variation in states’ readiness for disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and other health emergencies. The report warns that national preparedness depends not only on state capacity, but also on strong and stable federal health and preparedness systems, sustained intergovernmental coordination, and long-term investment in public health infrastructure.

Ready or Not 2026: Protecting the Public’s Health from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism measures the nation’s readiness for public health emergencies through 10 indicators of state preparedness, including healthcare workforce mobility, state public health funding, laboratory surge planning, access to paid sick leave, and community water system safety. This year’s report also includes a special feature on how federal workforce reductions and funding instability could weaken preparedness nationwide.

“The nation faced the most severe flu season in nearly a decade, the highest annual measles case count since 1991, and devastating weather-related emergencies, even as federal public health funding, staffing, and operational support were destabilized,” said Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, President and CEO of TFAH. “These challenges make clear that emergency preparedness cannot rely on a patchwork of limited and unpredictable resources. Effective readiness requires strong federal leadership, stable investment, and coordinated action across states and communities, especially as the United States prepares to host matches during the 2026 World Cup.”

As TFAH marks its 25th anniversary, the report highlights how decades of federal investment, policy development, and programmatic progress helped build the preparedness systems now under strain. The report places states and the District of Columbia into three performance tiers for emergency preparedness: 20 states in the high-performance tier, 17 states and the District of Columbia in the middle-performance tier, and 13 states in the low-performance tier.

High-Performance Tier – 20 states

CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, IL, KS, MA, MD, ME, MT, NC, NH, NJ, PA, RI, UT, VA, VT, WI

Middle-Performance Tier – 17 states and the District of Columbia

AR, AZ, DC, GA, HI, ID, IN, LA, MO, ND, NE, NV, NY, OH, OR, SC, TN, WA

Low-Performance Tier – 13 states

AL, AK, IA, KY, MI, MN, MS, NM, OK, SD, TX, WV, WY

These benchmarks provide policymakers and health officials with a roadmap for strengthening emergency preparedness in their jurisdictions.

Other key findings from the report include:

Public Health Funding: Most states increased or maintained their public health funding in fiscal year 2025. At least 12 states reduced state public health funding.

Water Safety: On average, 6 percent of residents in each state were served by a community water system with at least one health-based violation, mainly concentrated in smaller, rural, and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. A federal assessment also found critical or high-risk cybersecurity vulnerabilities in dozens of drinking water systems.

Seasonal Flu Vaccination: The percentage of U.S. residents who received a vaccination against influenza continued to decrease from pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. The 2024-25 flu season saw the highest hospitalization rates since 2010–2011 and the most pediatric deaths in any non-pandemic season since reporting began in 2004.

Avoidable Mortality: Wide variation persists across states in deaths from preventable and treatable causes before age 75. Rates in the highest-burden states are more than twice those in the lowest. Racial and ethnic disparities compound these gaps in most states, and low overall rates do not necessarily indicate equitable outcomes.

Paid Sick Leave: Access to paid sick leave varies widely across U.S. regions—from 98 percent of workers in Pacific states to 67 percent in East South Central states—and gaps are most concentrated among low-wage, part-time, and service-sector workers. Paid sick leave reduces disease transmission, supports business continuity, and is increasingly recognized by employers as an important part of preparedness infrastructure.

Policy Recommendations for Improving Emergency Preparedness:

The report outlines steps the Administration, Congress and federal agencies should take to strengthen the nation’s health and economic security:

  • Provide stable, flexible, and sufficient funding for public health preparedness, workforce, and data modernization to help ensure every state has the systems needed to protect residents.
  • Restore the federal public health workforce and capabilities reduced in 2025.
  • Reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act.
  • Strengthen outbreak and pandemic readiness by supporting immunization, public health surveillance, and antimicrobial resistance efforts.
  • All levels of government should adopt strategies and accountability metrics to incorporate community resilience and health equity into preparedness.
  • Accelerate development, stockpiling, and distribution of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other medical countermeasures.
  • Bolster healthcare system readiness, including cross-state credentialing and investment in Health Care Readiness programs.
  • Expand preparedness for extreme weather and environmental health threats.

 

Read the full report

 

Trust for America’s Health is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health policy, research, and advocacy organization that promotes optimal health for every person and community and makes the prevention of illness and injury a national priority.

 

 

 

 

TFAH’s Statement on the Impact of the Loss of CDC Grants

(Washington, DC – February 11, 2026) — TFAH is deeply alarmed at the most recent cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in CDC grants to states and communities.  These funds support the core public health infrastructure that keeps Americans safe, including early detection of outbreaks, preventing injuries and HIV, reducing health disparities, strengthening the public health workforce, and modernizing outdated data systems.

These abrupt cuts undermine the ability of health departments, clinics, researchers, and community-based organizations to protect lives and respond to health threats.

Protecting the health and well-being of all Americans requires sustained, predictable investment, not sudden reversals that leave communities vulnerable.  We urge HHS to reverse these cancellations and restore these life-saving programs.

CDC Slashes Universal Vaccine Recommendations

(January 7, 2026)

As flu cases in the U.S. are rising dramatically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overseen by the Trump Administration’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, announced that it is endorsing fewer routinely-recommended vaccinations for all children.

As part of the new schedule, HHS will no longer broadly recommend influenza, COVID-19, rotavirus, and other previously recommended immunizations. It now recommends 11 vaccines for all children, down from previously recommending vaccinations to protect against 18 different diseases in 2024.

That’s happening as flu cases in the U.S. have reached their highest levels since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data from the CDC, with children and teenagers among the worst affected.

Read the full article.

Public Health Leaders’ Joint Statement in Response to Announced Changes to U.S. Childhood Vaccine Schedule

(Washington, DC – January 5, 2026) — Together, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), and the Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC) issued the following statement in response to today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) of significant changes to the U.S. childhood vaccination schedule:

Our nation’s vaccine schedule has been built upon extensive scientific evidence and continuous safety monitoring to best protect children as they grow. It has been deliberated and studied to ensure safety while protecting our nation’s children from diseases that can significantly harm their health and wellbeing. For decades, each change to the schedule was discussed openly by experts, with both benefits and risks considered. However, today’s announcement places increased burden on parents and health providers to navigate an increasingly complex system and assure access to these life-saving products.

Immunizations are the most effective defense we have against a host of deadly and painful illnesses. Ensuring all children receive the vaccines they need on time stops diseases from spreading in the community and ensures healthy childhood development. We see the positive impact each day, as diseases once commonplace are now rare, and kids are in school instead of being home sick or hospitalized due to preventable illness. Creating new barriers to immunizations, as today’s announcement does, will make it harder for children to have the opportunity to grow up healthy and strong.

###

Trust for America’s Health
Trust for America’s Health is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health research, policy, and advocacy organization that promotes optimal health for every person and community and makes the prevention of illness and injury a national priority.

About NACCHO
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) represents the over 3,300 local governmental health departments across the country. These city, county, metropolitan, district, and tribal departments work every day to protect and promote health and well-being for all people in their communities. For more information, visit www.naccho.org.

About the Big Cities Health Coalition
The Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC) is a forum for the leaders of America’s largest metropolitan health departments to exchange strategies and jointly address issues to promote and protect the health and safety of their residents. Collectively, BCHC member jurisdictions directly impact more than 61 million people, or one in five Americans. www.bigcitieshealth.org

 

 

 

New Report Examines State Policies that Support Good Health and Analyzes the Legislative Landscape for their Implementation

Federal cuts to health promoting programs will require that states and community partners innovate and work across sectors to protect and advance residents’ health

 

(Washington, DC – December 17, 2025) – Federal actions that cut funding and lead to program eliminations throughout government will slow the implementation of state-level policies that promote health, concludes a new report, Advancing Policies that Create Conditions for Good Health: Opportunities, Barriers, and Strengths, released today by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH). These program changes will create gaps that states and cross-sector partnerships could help address through support for collaboration and innovation.

The report is the newest in TFAH’s Promoting Health and Cost Control in States (PHACCS) report series highlighting evidence-based policies and programs states can pursue to improve residents’ health and reduce healthcare spending. Population-level health is influenced by a variety of social and economic factors, such as housing access, food affordability, the built environment, and workplace policies. The PHACCS Initiative, launched in 2018, identifies evidence-based policies that states can implement to promote residents’ health and create economic return on investment.

This new report considers these policies in the current legislative landscape, based on input from advocates, service providers, and government staff across different jurisdictions and policy areas. It analyzes how the changed legislative environment is impeding policy action and what new innovations and cross-sector collaborations are needed to create or protect policy momentum.

“The nation’s public health infrastructure has been changed in consequential ways that will impact states and communities across the country. These changes, including funding cuts and the elimination of effective programs, risk reversing progress in improving Americans’ health,” said J. Nadine Gracia, M.D. MSCE, President and CEO of Trust for America’s Health. “In order to fill some of these gaps, state-based organizations and policymakers are developing strategies to support health promoting policies, particularly in communities with the greatest need.”

The report is organized into three sections which encourage states and cross-sector partners to continue their work promoting good health in every community by sharing information, evidence, and innovative strategies.

“Leaders within policy areas supported by the PHACCS initiative continue to leverage strategies that help advance policies in ways that uniquely fit their states despite fiscal constraints created by the current budget environment,” said Breanca Merritt, Ph.D., Director of Policy at Trust for America’s Health. “This report identified recent progress and policy wins using these approaches, including bipartisan and community-driven efforts within multiple states.”

The first section, Creating Conditions for Good Health: A Changing Policy Environment, outlines federal policies that have supported states in advancing health promoting programs, as well as recent federal policy decisions and state actions that limit states’ ability to do so.

The second section, Creating Conditions for Good Health: What’s Working for States, summarizes input from advocacy organizations and government partners collected during national and regional level convenings. During the convenings, participants discussed effective strategies for advancing health promoting policies in states as well as barriers to their implementation.

The last section of the report, Creating Conditions for Good Health: Progress and Highlights of PHACCS Policies reviews trends in state-level adoption within policy areas highlighted by PHACCS, including:

  • Universal pre-kindergarten programs
  • School nutrition programs
  • Drug overdose and infectious disease prevention strategies, including harm reduction
  • Smoke-free policies
  • Tobacco and alcohol pricing strategies
  • Complete Streets policies
  • Housing rehabilitation and rapid re-housing programs
  • Earned Income Tax Credit
  • Earned employee sick leave
  • Paid family leave
  • Fair hiring practices

These policies have shown strong or emerging evidence for their ability to improve health and can offer return on investment for states that implement them. In the coming years, states and their community partners should strive to collaborate even more closely to support their implementation.

 

 

Un nuevo informe examina las políticas estaduales que apoyan la buena salud y analiza el panorama legislativo para su aplicación

Los recortes federales a los programas de promoción de la salud exigirán que los estados y los socios comunitarios innoven y trabajen entre los distintos sectores para proteger y mejorar la salud de los residentes

 

(Washington, D. C., 17 de diciembre de 2025): Las medidas federales que recortan la financiación y conducen a la eliminación de programas en todo el gobierno frenarán la aplicación de políticas estatales que promuevan la salud, según concluye un nuevo informe, Advancing Policies that Create Conditions for Good Health: Opportunities, Barriers, and Strengths (Cómo promover políticas que generen las condiciones para una buena salud: oportunidades, obstáculos y fortalezas), publicado hoy por Trust for America’s Health (TFAH). Estos cambios en los programas crearán lagunas que los estados y las asociaciones intersectoriales podrían ayudar a resolver apoyando la colaboración y la innovación.

El informe es el más reciente de la serie de informes “Promoción de la salud y control de costos en los estados (PHACCS)” de TFAH en la que se destacan las políticas y los programas basados en pruebas que los estados pueden aplicar para mejorar la salud de sus residentes y reducir el gasto atención sanitaria. La salud a nivel de la población se ve influida por diversos factores sociales y económicos, como el acceso a la vivienda, la asequibilidad de los alimentos, el entorno construido y las políticas laborales. La Iniciativa PHACCS, lanzada en 2018, identifica políticas basadas en pruebas que los estados pueden implementar para promover la salud de los residentes y generar un retorno económico de la inversión.

Este nuevo informe considera estas políticas en el panorama legislativo actual y se basa en los aportes de activistas, proveedores de servicios y personal gubernamental que se desempeña en diferentes jurisdicciones y ámbitos políticos. En él se analiza cómo el cambio ocurrido en el entorno legislativo impide que se tomen medidas políticas y qué nuevas innovaciones y colaboraciones intersectoriales se necesitan para generar impulso político o mantenerlo.

“La infraestructura de salud pública de la nación ha cambiado ostensiblemente de maneras que afectarán a los estados y las comunidades de todo el país. Estos cambios, que incluyen recortes en la financiación y la eliminación de programas eficaces, corren el riesgo de revertir los avances que ha habido en la mejora de la salud de los estadounidenses”, declaró la doctora J. Nadine Gracia, MSCE, presidenta y consejera delegada de Trust for America’s Health. “Para zanjar algunas de estas lagunas, las organizaciones estatales y los responsables de formular políticas están llevando adelante estrategias de apoyo a las políticas de promoción de la salud, sobre todo en las comunidades con mayores necesidades”.

El informe está organizado en tres secciones que animan a los estados y a los socios intersectoriales a continuar su labor de promoción de la buena salud en todas las comunidades compartiendo información, pruebas y estrategias innovadoras.

“Los líderes dentro de las áreas políticas que reciben el apoyo de la iniciativa PHACCS continúan aprovechando estrategias que ayudan a avanzar en las políticas de maneras que se adaptan a sus estados en particular, a pesar de las restricciones fiscales creadas por el entorno presupuestario actual”, dijo Breanca Merritt, Ph.D., directora de políticas de Trust for America’s Health. “Este informe identificó progresos recientes y victorias políticas que se obtuvieron gracias a estos enfoques, lo que incluye esfuerzos bipartidistas e impulsados por la comunidad en diversos estados”.

La primera sección, Creating Conditions for Good Health: A Changing Policy Environment (Cómo crear las condiciones para una buena salud: un entorno político cambiante) detalla las políticas federales que han apoyado a los estados para llevar adelante los programas de promoción de la salud, así como las recientes decisiones políticas federales y las medidas estaduales que limitan la capacidad de los estados para hacerlo.

La segunda sección, Creating Conditions for Good Health: What’s Working for States (Cómo crear las condiciones para una buena salud: qué funciona para los estados) resume los aportes de las organizaciones de defensoría y los socios del gobierno recopilados durante las convocatorias a nivel nacional y regional. Durante las reuniones, los participantes debatieron estrategias eficaces para impulsar las políticas de promoción de la salud en los estados, así como los obstáculos para su implementación.

La última sección del informe, Creating Conditions for Good Health: Progress and Highlights of PHACCS Policies (Cómo crear las condiciones para una buena salud: progreso y aspectos destacados de las políticas), PHACCS repasa las tendencias en la adopción a nivel estadual dentro de las áreas políticas destacadas por PHACCS, lo que incluye:

  • Programas universales de preescolar
  • Programas de nutrición escolar
  • Estrategias de prevención de sobredosis de drogas y enfermedades infecciosas, incluida la reducción de daños
  • Políticas antitabaco
  • Estrategias de fijación de precios del tabaco y el alcohol
  • Políticas de calles completas
  • Programas de rehabilitación de viviendas y realojamiento rápido
  • Crédito fiscal por ingresos del trabajo
  • Baja por enfermedad del empleado remunerada
  • Permiso familiar remunerado
  • Prácticas de contratación justas

Estas políticas han dado muestras sólidas o incipientes de su capacidad para mejorar la salud y pueden ofrecer un retorno de la inversión a los estados que las apliquen. En los próximos años, los estados y sus socios comunitarios deberán esforzarse por colaborar aún más estrechamente para apoyar su implementación.

Informe completo (en inglés)

 

Trust for America’s Health es una organización sin fines de lucro, no partidaria, dedicada a la investigación, las políticas y la defensoría de la salud pública, que fomenta que todas las personas y comunidades cuenten con una salud óptima, y prioriza la prevención de enfermedades y lesiones a nivel nacional.

Statement from J. Nadine Gracia, M.D., MSCE, President and CEO of Trust for America’s Health on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Vote to Change Hepatitis B Vaccine Recommendations

(Washington DC – December 5, 2025) – “The ACIP’s vote today to recommend delaying administration of the hepatitis B vaccine for most infants moves the U.S. away from an evidence-based vaccine policy that has saved countless lives. The universal hepatitis B birth-dose vaccine has reduced hepatitis B cases among children and adolescents by 99 percent and prevented more than ninety thousand childhood deaths. The new recommendations were made with little transparency on the reasoning behind the decision, and no new evidence was presented during the meeting to explain the change. That process undermines public trust, causes confusion and threatens our nation’s health.

The universal hepatitis B birth-dose has prevented millions of hepatitis B infections in people of all ages since its introduction – a disease that can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer, liver failure, and premature death. Decades of research and surveillance have demonstrated that hepatitis B vaccines are safe and effective for newborns. Delaying or otherwise hindering access to this vaccine leaves infants at higher risk for infection and could have lifelong impacts on those children and their families.”

For more information, please refer to TFAH’s public comment here.

 

Statement from J. Nadine Gracia, M.D., MSCE, President and CEO of Trust for America’s Health on Changes to CDC Webpage on Vaccines and Autism:

(Washington, DC – November 20, 2025) – “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website has been changed to promote harmful, false claims about vaccines and autism. The science is clear: vaccines do not cause autism. Using a federal platform to promote disproven claims is a violation of public trust that jeopardizes vaccine confidence, undermines prevention efforts, and puts communities at risk of vaccine-preventable outbreaks. These myths contribute to needless illness and suffering.

Parents, patients, healthcare providers, and public health practitioners depend on CDC as a trustworthy source of verified, accurate scientific information.  Trust for America’s Health calls upon the CDC to restore the previous, science-driven vaccine webpages.”

 

 

The U.S. is facing an obesity epidemic. New report details the best and worst states.

(October 16, 2025)

The number of U.S. states where 35% or more of adults were obese dropped slightly in 2024, according to a report released Thursday analyzing federal health data.

Nineteen states had these particularly high rates of adult obesity, down from 23 states a year earlier.

“That’s actually the first time that there’s been a decrease in the number of states that are at or above that 35% level since this dataset began in 2011,” said Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, president and CEO of the Trust for America’s Health, the nonpartisan public health research and policy organization that released its annual “State of Obesity” report.

Read the article.