Hello from the Common Health Coalition! The 2-4-2 Digest is a weekly snapshot for health leaders - 4 key insights in 2 minutes or with 2 swipes on your phone. 

Weekly Health Insights

Medicaid and ICE: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) granting ICE officials access to Medicaid enrollee databases containing personal health information, increasing concerns that undocumented individuals may forgo necessary healthcare services. 

Fentanyl Overdose: The federal administration announced that funding for CDC’s Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) program will continue, but the timing of the funding is uncertain. The program is currently underfunded by $140M which threatens operations for the 90 health departments nationwide that rely on OD2A to build overdose prevention capacity, monitor drug supply shifts, and introduce new innovations. 

E-Cigarettes: The FDA has authorized Juul e-cigarettes for sale in the U.S. after a multi-year regulatory reviewal process, citing data that adults use Juul as an alternative to traditional cigarettes, despite ongoing concerns about youth use. The FDA gained authority to regulate e-cigarettes in 2016 and previously attempted to ban Juul products in 2022, pointing at the time to insufficient evidence of public health benefits.

Federal Spending Cuts: As part of the 2025 Rescissions Act, a mid-year budgeting process that allows Congress to cancel previously approved, unspent federal funds, lawmakers cut $8 billion from foreign aid programs and $1 billion from public broadcasting. However, funding was preserved for federally-funded programs such as PEPFAR, the bipartisan global HIV/AIDS initiative, among other global health initiatives. The package now awaits the president’s signature.

Colleague Corner

Two recent podcast episodes challenged health leaders to confront historic lows in trust in health institutions, expertise and traditional news sources — and to consider what it will take to begin repairing that trust.

“I think part of what got the field [of public health] into this conundrum is the fact that we know the language from a scientific perspective, we know the evidence, we're confident in the work that we do on behalf of delivering health and scientific innovation and public health to the American people, but we just can't effectively always communicate it. So …ensuring that those trusted messengers reflect individuals of all walks of life in this country is imperative in our work and is a central component of what we do.”

— Erin O’Malley from Coalition for Trust in Health & Science (CTHS) on “Partners for Advancing Health Equity”

“While we have different views on who to trust — we all share the belief that people in this country have a right to health. We all believe that the systems that drive that health should be transparent. They should be responsive to people's needs and their questions, and it should be affordable and accessible.”

— Chelsea Cipriano, Managing Director of the Common Health Coalition on “Why Should I Trust You?”

Data Watch

A new JAMA Network Open study found that Black and Hispanic children were disproportionately hospitalized compared with Asian or Pacific Islander and White children in the first three years of the pandemic (2020-2023), confirming that disparities emerged early and persisted over time.

Measles reports: Most recently in the U.S. there have been 1,315 confirmed measles cases. To continue following Measles updates, visit our Resources page for the latest Measles Briefs from Yale School of Public Health (under Situational Awareness Briefs). Read the latest deep-dive here.  

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