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PEPFAR, the U.S. global HIV/AIDS program, is - for the first time in its two-decade history - facing significant challenges that could impede its ability to fulfill its mission. This policy brief provides an overview of recent events and ongoing challenges facing the program.
This Policy Watch reviews the key provisions of President Trump's Executive Order that aim to restrict youth access to gender affirming care and examines state and legal responses.
This analysis highlights USAID's role in global health and shows that the agency provided the vast majority of the nation's global health assistance for other countries in 2023 (about $6.2 billion or 73% of the total bilateral global health funding that year).
This policy watch provides an overview of the Trump administration's executive order to pause all foreign aid programs, including for global health, and related actions to date.
This post looks at federal government databases with key health data that went offline on Jan. 31, 2025, including several related to HIV, some of which had returned by Feb. 2, 2025. It briefly describing the affected databases, which include widely used, large-scale national health surveys, indices, and data dashboards, that inform research, policy making, and media coverage about health care and public health.
This policy watch provides a short overview of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), describing its history, budget, organizational structure and its major programs and responsibilities.
Contingency management is an evidence-based psychosocial intervention that uses motivational incentives, such as vouchers or gift cards, to encourage recovery behaviors like stimulant abstinence and treatment session (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy, group therapy) attendance. The Biden administration has approved five state contingency management waivers (California, Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, and Washington); two additional state contingency management requests are currently pending federal review.
This brief examines what the November election and prior efforts to enshrine abortion rights at the ballot box mean for those states and what’s next, including the future of abortion restrictions in states where voters enshrined abortion rights where abortion was banned or restricted, as well as those that do not have abortion bans.
This policy watch examines the implications of new proposed regulations that would allow Medicare and require Medicaid to cover drugs used to treat obesity, including a relatively new class of highly effective but costly drugs known as GLP-1s.
This policy brief highlights areas in which HHS, FDA, and CDC have authority to shape U.S. vaccine policy with a specific focus on vaccine approvals and recommendations for the public. Ultimately, while there are limits, federal officials have significant authority to influence and alter vaccine policy, which could affect vaccine availability, views about vaccines, and vaccine use in the U.S. However, this does not include imposing mandates on or changing local vaccination requirements, as those authorities rest with state and local governments.
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