New and Competitive Renewal Awards (Through December 12) Fiscal Year 2024 New: 608 Competitive Renewal: 78 Fiscal Year 2025 New: 662 Competitive Renewal: 58 Fiscal Year 2025 New: 0 Competitive Renewal: 0

These are ALL renewal awards (with a few supplements). No new or competitive renewal awards!

Post-doc opportunity to work with Anna Haskins on the Future of Family and Child Wellbeing Study. Apply by Jan 23. apply.interfolio.com/178605

My program is hiring in population health, at the assistant or associate level. See below and please feel free to email me with any questions. psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...

This afternoon, I was in a meeting with Jay Bhattacharya, and I can confirm this is *exactly* what he both wants and will be doing. THIS IS NOT HYPERBOLE.

That contract has brought the US to the fore of scientific discovery and innovation, but this year that seems to be going in the wrong direction Subjects drawing the ire of the admin have been hurt,yes, but also Alzheimer's, cancer and HIV/AIDS research (analysis of NIH data by @jaspar.bsky.social)

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is seeking input on Federal policy updates to accelerate the American scientific enterprise. This is your chance to give some feedback on how the past ~10 months have gone for science. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... I plan to highlight:

An Oregon pilot program giving cash to homeless youths sees a staggering reduction in homelessness. The program gave participants $1,000 cash payments each month for two years, and at the end of the project's first phase, 91% of participants reported being in stable housing.

Check out this blog post from @clairemkbowen.bsky.social showing how federal data shape your entire day—often without you even noticing. Federal data are everywhere! It’s the invisible infrastructure powering daily life and the big decisions that shape our futures. #statssky

Increasingly concerning that the Trump Admin is obliterating data so we can’t document what they’re destroying. In this case, gold standard tracking of health care access, insurance coverage and costs. It’s a study that will help us understand the impacts of the Big Beautiful Bill.

MEPS seems to be gone as of now. This is very bad. These are critical pieces of data about health care and they belong to the American public.

While we wait to see what is going on, please note that you can still get most of what is in MEPS microdata from IPUMS: meps.ipums.org/meps/

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1 CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1 CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 280-to-1 Trickle-down economics was always a sham. Nothing has ever trickled down.

NEW from me - NSF cancels grant scheme for social science research. Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪

🚨We analyzed 138 million geocoded property tax records to quantify how municipal boundaries spatially overlap onto economic segregation in every US metro area—creating disparities in localities’ ability to fund public goods. And we made an interactive map of our results! [1/16]

This is concerning. NIH is changing their policy so that staff have to prepare justification for every application that is funded BUT NO DOCUMENTATION FOR APPLICATIONS THAT ARE SKIPPED (BASED ON PERCENTILES). 1/2

The NIH director told attendees the NIH doesn't do enough innovative research. “What puts lives at risk is doing research that’s incremental,” Bhattacharya said. “All it does is advance the careers of the researchers that do it. It results in publications that don’t get used and aren’t replicable.”

This is fab! These book club kits that the UMN library offers would be great for postdoc and PhD book club professional development groups! Thx for posting about them @heatherrandell.bsky.social !

I just love this. The University of Minnesota Library has launched book club kits! Students can take out six copies of the same book to read with friends. College kids need this sort of stuff now more than ever. 📚📖💙 libguides.umn.edu/bookclubkits...

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

Up to 323 cancelled CSR study sections. That's more than the 204 sections cancelled earlier this year. Rescheduling is going to be a hot mess with NIH staff reductions and study section members heading into finals and holidays that limit availability. 🧪

Ignoring a Congressional mandate about a report on missing and murdered native Americans because the administration calls it "DEI". Problems go away when you don't track and share data. oklahomawatch.org/2025/11/14/t...

BREAKING: Trump is restoring a rule that penalizes lawfully present immigrants who use Medicaid, arguing that “government benefits should not incentivize immigration.” Advocates warn the rule will cause both individual suffering & negative population-wide effects. www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

We’re looking for a news reporter interested in writing about weather science and weather history for a social platform. This is a really great team and you should join us careers.wbd.com/global/en/jo...

The Trump regime’s cuts to NIH grants disrupted more than 380 clinical trials, affecting over 74,000 participants. The cuts disproportionately impacted trials on infectious diseases and minority communities.

MedPage Today story about NIH Institute Director searches with comments from me and former NIMH Director Josh Gordon. www.medpagetoday.com/washington-w...

RIP Todd Snider. He wrote the greatest song about #statistics you'll ever hear: Statistician's Blues. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPlD...

Another new policy from the geniuses in NIH leadership. Apparently, ~70% of grant applications for most mechanisms will not be "triaged", i.e. not discussed at study section. This is an increase from the ~50% level that has been in place for many years. I don't know the rationale for this 1/13

A new study by LDI Fellow Irma Elo shows a deep geographic divide in Black life expectancy before COVID-19: ⬆️ Gains in cities & the Northeast ⬇️ Losses in the Midwest & rural areas Read the full Q&A here: https://bit.ly/4ocoeWl

With a new measure to understand causes of maternal mortality, historical demographer George Alter finds infectious disease & nutrition improvements likely impacted falling maternal mortality more than shifting obstetrical practices. Just out in Population Studies: psc.isr.umich.edu/news/new-ins...

🚨Dept. of Education proposes to exclude public health degrees from the “professional degree” category. That means new public health experts could lose access to key higher ed resources, like loan limits & reimbursement. A bold strategy to let infectious diseases win! 🦠 aspph.org/department-o...

If you're 60, live in Crested Butte, CO, and earn $63k, you can get a Bronze plan in the Colorado Marketplace for as little as $36/month this year. Next year, if Congress doesn't extend the subsidy enhancements, the lowest-cost plan will be $1,282/month www.healthinsurance.org/aca-marketpl...

I know that the job market is rough this year for Econ PhDs. @utoronto.ca has expanded its postdoc funding. If you are on the market and work on school finance or early childhood education and are interested in a PostDoc, let me know! #econsky #educsky postdoc.sgs.utoronto.ca/current-post...

Just got an email from my SRO for the study section that was missed in October. Good news is that they are trying to reschedule ASAP (Dec/Jan). The bad news is that CSR is mandating that only the the top third (not half) of applications will get discussed for the next 2 rounds.

Very well done story on 60 Minutes about the harms of grant terminations and freezes at Harvard with Joan Brugge, Don Engbar, David Liu, and a very compelling young cancer patient, now cured with Liu's technology. Transcript and video here www.cbsnews.com/news/researc...

Some charts for those who don't know the extent of the US public (and private) investment in research (particularly in biomedical research) compared to other countries and institutions. The destruction of the US' scientific institutions has global implications.

“70% of wage-earning adults who rely on government programs like SNAP and Medicaid work full-time, many at hugely profitable companies like Walmart and McDonald’s whose low wages are effectively subsidized by tax dollars without any of the blame or paternalistic lectures.”

The music cuts off awkwardly before the end, but this is an incredible NYC Halloween costume compilation.

This graph never fails to be shocking: "The US has experienced the earliest and greatest slowdown in life expectancy improvements among higher-income countries, reported Eileen Crimmins. “We have horrible life expectancy—and it’s getting worse and worse”" www.prb.org/resources/se...

This Halloween, EssentialData.US, FAS, and Public Environmental Data Partners are remembering federal datasets terminated or removed this year. Add to their list by Oct. 29, 11:59 pm ET: https://essentialdata.us/in-memoriam.html

What was life really like before vaccines? The story of what happened to 8-year old George Williams in August 1852 gives us a glimpse. open.substack.com/pub/epiellie...

Cool development @nejm.org Evidence will publish a section in association with @cidrap.bsky.social on public health and vaccine issues usually covered by the now-dead MMWR www.statnews.com/2025/10/21/c... #publicHealth #MedSky

Any good articles explaining why? As in, the specifics on how this shifted. I'm inclined to believe most admissions offices don't *feel* like they're doing things differently; I'm curious whether there are detailed analyses for why some are negligible (or are Smith!) while others are huge.

Oh hey, little update. Indiana University Department of Sociology is hiring this fall. Keeping you on your toes deadline is 11/16. We’re looking for an assistant professor specializing in sociology of medicine, health, and/or well-being broadly defined. indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/30984

My first thought was that Google took a page directly from the @drugmonkey.bsky.social blog post from awhile back on the h-index gamification. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Most ppl know that Chicago (home of modern urban segregation) is a very segregated place but I don't think most outside Chicago (+many Chicagoans!) understand how the *distances* involved and *depth* of segregation mean most white ppl have ZERO visibility into many Black and Latine neighborhoods +