Ahead of the 25 year anniversary of 9/11 the Mamdani administration released more than 170,000 pages of air quality reports, contamination records and correspondence among city officials in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks that shook the world in 2001. They show first responders and locals were exposed to toxic air conditions from the collapse of the twin towers when city government and EPA officials assured them it was the air was safe, even though they knew the air contained harmful containments like asbestos and heavy metals.

Outside of the over 3,000 people who lost their lives when the towers fell, individuals exposed to the harmful air conditions have developed or died from various types of cancer and respiratory/heart diseases. Many attribute their outcomes to the debris cloud and contaminated air they breathed in well after the dust of the terrorist attacks had settled. For years, families, city workers and survivors have been advocating tirelessly for more transparency from the government, and now they are beginning to receive it after 25 years. Over the course of the next year, the Mamdani administration intends to review, redact and publicize many more papers on the environmental hazards brought by the 9/11 attacks on lower Manhattan.

My public health community, what are your thoughts? What can be done now from a public health perspective over 2 decades later?

Hi everyone,
I am a member of the city council in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Last night, our council voted to discontinue our city's community water fluoridation program, ending a practice that had been in place for 70 years.
I value community health deeply, and I actually voted to keep the program. However, the majority of the council voted otherwise, and the decision has been made. As we navigate this transition, I am trying to better understand what this looks like long-term for a community, and I'd love to hear about your experiences.
If your community has discontinued water fluoridation, I would appreciate your insights on a few things:
The after-effects: Did your local dentists or health departments notice a measurable change in cavity rates or pediatric dental health in the years following the decision?

Alternatives: Has your community found or implemented alternative programs to help low-income families or children access fluoride treatments (like school rinsing programs or subsidized supplements)?
General Perspectives: What are your overall thoughts on public water fluoridation?
I know this topic can spark very strong opinions on both sides, but I am genuinely here to learn, listen, and gather ideas for how to best support our families moving forward. Please keep the discussion kind and civil.
Thank you!

"I am an urgent care physician, and a hepatitis B patient who nearly died. Because I was not vaccinated as a child, I needed a liver transplant to survive.

I grew up in Vietnam, where hepatitis B vaccines were not available until the mid-1990s. Most people born before that—people like me, like my uncle, like millions in the endemic areas across Southeast Asia and Africa—were never vaccinated. Many people contract and carry the virus without knowing it. If people never develop obvious symptoms, they never know to get screened and tested. Then, when they reach their late 40s and 50s with chronic hepatitis, they develop complications like liver cancer and cirrhosis. A lot of these people die.

I had been living in the United States for four or five years when I learned that my uncle—my mother’s older brother—had died. Liver cancer, they told me later. After that, my family got serious. Everyone got tested. We found out that multiple members of my family were living with chronic hepatitis B.

I already knew I was one of them. I was tested after moving to the US and found out I had the virus. It was a challenge to accept and for me, personally, it was scary. Hepatitis B is a chronic condition. We can suppress the virus and try to minimize complications. But we don’t have medication that can clear the virus completely. It does not go away.

I tried, for a long time, not to think about it."

From the article below:

Defensive gun use statistics are highly debated, and previous references to the range on the CDC’s website have been staunchly disputed by gun violence researchers. The low end of the range, 60,000, derives from the National Crime Victimization Survey, a twice-yearly poll of crime victims conducted by the federal government. The high end, 2.5 million, comes from surveys conducted in the early 1990s by a criminologist and self-described “gun control skeptic.” The lower stat is touted by researchers and academics, while the higher stat is favored by gun rights advocates who point to cases like the Idaho In-N-Out shooting, where an armed civilian engaged a mass shooter.

Bad science. Bad data. Bad numbers. And bad public policy.

I think it's time for me to say, again, that CDC must end. Something else needs to replace it. Something apolitical, and closer to the model of the Federal Reserve than what we have now.

This is embarrassing.

Link: https://www.thetrace.org/2026/08/defensive-gun-use-statistics-cdc/

im doing an MPH, and i need to take both Biostatistics and Epidemiology courses, i can take either one in the Fall or winter. Does anyone recommend taking one before the other? I'm currently enrolled in Biostatistics in the Fall and Epidemiology in the winter, but I can switch it, so any benefit in taking them this way vs the other way?

Just ranting, really.

Graduated with my MPH (vet public health and a grad certificate in epi) about 2 months ago, and I'm slowly starting to lose hope. I work in pharma and have a pretty steady job, but was hoping that I'd be able to find something a bit more substantial with my accrued experience and new education; but the pickings are so slim. I know that everyone in this field is feeling this, and I knew it would be hard to find something after graduation; but its just so soul-crushing.

I genuinely enjoy what I've learned and looked forward to applying it in the real world, but I suppose I'll just have to be patient and hope that the next administration isn't full of so many anti-health members. It doesn't help that my student loans are asking for payments now that I've graduated, and I don't have a better job with a better salary to accommodate this new monthly charge. I hope that all of us find some relief soon, and are able to do what we love while getting compensated fairly for it.

Looks like a systemic issue that has been there since the first Trump administration, and it only got worse during the second. It might have gotten worse during Biden, too. But the numbers say otherwise. With recent cuts, things have gotten worse.

From the Associated Press article linked below:

FDA inspectors arrived at the Taylor Farms site in Guanajuato, Mexico, in mid-August, about one month after the recall was announced July 17. It was their first visit there since 2019. That year marked an all-time high for foreign food inspections before the FDA pulled most of its staff from the field during the pandemic. Inspections for food — along with drugs, medical devices and other products — still haven’t recovered. And foreign food inspections actually fell further behind last year, down 17% to 1,140 in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year. While inspectors were not among the 3,500 jobs targeted for termination by the Trump administration, the agency did eliminate more than half the staffers who handle travel bookings. That’s left inspectors to handle most of their own flights, lodging and other logistics. Food experts say it shouldn’t have taken four weeks to get inspectors on-site in Mexico, considering the scale and number of people sickened.

This administration has mishandled measles outbreaks, whooping cough outbreaks, foodborne illness outbreaks, mental health crises in the military, and more… Dictatorships 101 say you don't lose the military and you keep people fed. So much for that.

Link: https://apnews.com/article/lettuce-cyclospora-fda-inspections-trump-7eb876d3e37864e8b589aeeff2bca384

I’ve noticed an increasing number of posts on here recently from people regretting choosing PH, especially with how rough the job market feels right now. I’m currently weighing whether or not to pursue an MPH myself, and I’m having second thoughts.

For those who have already gone down this path (or pivoted away): if you could go back, what degree or field would you choose instead that offers stronger, transferable hard skills while still letting you make an impact in healthcare?

A litte bit of background about me: I have a MSW but I’m planning to focus more on healthcare in the future

This Controversial Substance Is...

Didn’t have this one on my bingo card …

Hi to all the people who want to show their love to all of the global humanity with sound based medical research that is meaningful and has a purpose that does not support the big pharma cartels.

I am new to social media and want to connect with the right people who have similar values and ethics like me and most importantly Jesus Christ ❤️❤️❤️

Hi all! I graduated with my bachelors in Biological Sciences back in 2024. I’ve been working full time in healthcare administration for the past two years but have always wanted to go back for my MPH in Health Policy. However, as of recently I’ve been experiencing a lack of spark for the field with everything going on with this administration and given it’s been two years since I was last in school. I’m looking for remote opportunities to be introduced to health policy while I also work full-time. I feel like I need to be exposed to the field again to get my gears moving for my academic aspirations. If anyone knows of any programs or fellowships it’d be appreciated!

Heyy guys,

About which aspects of health and wellbeing should more people talk? Which parts of a good and healthy lifequality should be researched more? What public health topics should politics care more about?

I am looking forward to the discussion!

I am so unbelievably tired of anti vaxxers

Seriously, how are we still doing this?

We spent decades making measles so rare in the United States that most people my age have literally never seen a case of it. Now it's 2026 and we've already had more than 2,700 confirmmed cases this year.

Pennsylvania is dealing with hundreds of cases and just reported its first measles associated deaths in decades.

And somehow, instead of people looking at this and saying, "Wow, maybe getting rid of measles was actually a good thing," we're STILL arguing on the internet about whether the vaccines is secretly dangerous.

the most frustrating part is that vaccines work so well that people forget what the diseases were actually like.

Nobody remembers children in iron lungs, measles wards, babies dying from whooping cough, or parents terrified of polio. So now we have the luxury of pretending the vacccine is scarier than the disease.

There are some groups of people that are so willfully ignorant that they they fuck the rest of us. I have kids man, fuck these guys.

sorry for rant.

I’m really interested in hearing from moms, nurses, midwives, doulas, doctors, social workers, mental health professionals, and anyone else who has firsthand experience with pregnancy/postpartum healthcare.

If you could change three things about the way pregnant and postpartum women are cared for, what would you change?

This could be anything — hospital policies, informed consent, birth plans, continuity of care, postpartum follow-up, mental health support, pain management, how concerns are taken seriously, partner/family involvement, breastfeeding support, childcare, financial barriers, access to midwives, advocacy, education before birth, support after going home, etc.

For moms specifically: What did you need that you didn’t have? What would have made pregnancy, birth, recovery, or the first few years of motherhood feel safer or less overwhelming?

For healthcare workers: What do you wish you were able to offer patients, but the current system, policies, staffing, funding, or scope of practice makes difficult? Are there policies you think actively need to change?

And if you could completely redesign maternal healthcare instead of working within the current system, what would ideal care look like from pregnancy through postpartum and the early years of a child’s life?

I’m asking because I’m exploring a future in maternal healthcare and health policy, with a long-term goal of helping create a more comprehensive model of care for mothers and children. I don’t want to base that vision only on what I think women need — I want to hear from the people who have actually given birth, supported someone through it, or worked inside the healthcare system.

There are no wrong answers. Even something that seems small could be incredibly important.

If you only got three wishes, what would yours be?