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

Vaccine Schedule: Yesterday, the American Academy of Pediatrics published its 2026 immunization schedule, continuing to recommend routine protection against 18 diseases. CHC and AAP are co-hosting a webinar on practical guidance for clinicians around childhood immunizations on Wednesday, January 28 at 7PM ET. Register here.

WHO: The U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization ends U.S. participation in WHO-led outbreak surveillance networks, influenza strain selection for annual flu vaccines, and emergency coordination during cross-border health threats. California has become the first state to join the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.

Medical Debt: North Carolina erased medical debt for 2.5 million residents through a statewide agreement with hospitals that tied Medicaid funding to retroactive debt forgiveness and automatic financial assistance for eligible patients. The approach pairs debt relief with prevention and is now being watched as a model by other states grappling with rising uninsured rates.

UK Measles Status: The UK has lost its measles elimination status, with the World Health Organization citing sustained transmission following large outbreaks in 2024 and vaccination rates falling below the 95% threshold needed for herd immunity.

Colleague Corner

In a STAT op-ed, journalists Tom W. Johnson and Brinda Adhikari reflect on lessons from their podcast “Why Should I Trust You?”, which brings public health practitioners into dialogue with supporters of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.

"We spend the first 30 minutes to an hour of these discussions doing something rarely prioritized in public health debates: sharing our life stories. That is not a detour from the work but rather essential to trust building. And that fragile, rebuilt trust is already beginning to lead to action. Our podcast connected Elizabeth Frost of MAHA Ohio with the Yale School of Public Health and a grassroots environmental organization. Working together, they won an NIH grant to study drinking water safety in East Palestine, Ohio, where residents continue to live in fear after the 2023 toxic train derailment."

– Tom W. Johnson and Brinda Adhikari, hosts and co-creators of the “Why Should I Trust You?” podcast

Data Watch

A large VA cohort study finds that veterans who received short-term homelessness prevention services through the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program had 13% lower mortality risk over three years and lower inpatient costs, despite higher outpatient use. The findings suggest that rapid rehousing and prevention-focused housing assistance may be associated with improved survival and reduced hospitalizations.

Figure 2. Kaplan-Meier Survival Curves for Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) and No SSVF Over the 3 Years Following the Index Date

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