Our new study in The Lancet leverages a natural experiment to evaluate how state-level anti-immigration measures impact physical and mental health. @thelancet.com #medsky #cardiosky www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

#Boltup ⚡️

Stalling life expectancy was connected to “foundation wide DEI” in an essay by the NIH Director and a Deputy Director. A shame because there are plenty of more appropriate and impactful objectives to unite people around (opposed to odd grudges). Focusing on healthcare delivery is a great call!

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Here are the people and institutions that gave me hope in 2025. 1/ www.thenation.com/article/soci...

1. IMPACT Collaboratory seeks a postdoc with the Design and Statistics Core (DSC). The aims are to develop and disseminate research methods and best practices in the conduct and implementation of embedded pragmatic clinical trials (ePCT) for people living with #dementia and their care partners.

2025: the year of “Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.”

Sam Darnold legacy game loading???

Unfortunately the drop in ESI funding rates is not paired with changes in funding required to get tenure. It’s not just the next three years of our labs at risk, but the rest of our careers. We are also the cohort that started in the COVID pandemic- it’s been nothing but “unprecedented times”…

There’s a ton of qualified and accomplished scientists who have a clear vision for what effective NIH reform could look like (even some with contrarian ideas!), not sure how THIS is a meritocracy… Important reporting and story by @katherinejwu.com (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/...

It’s one thing to not believe in the value of DEI, it’s another to shut down projects mid-award. It creates a chilling effect for ALL early-career researchers and a culture of fear instead of thinking about what is possible with science.

The NIH Director's new piece in a right-wing rag, The Spectator, is shocking. Ugh, he CELEBRATES overseeing a "large-scale effort" to "eliminate DEI" from NIH processes And, as Dr Green notes, the piece is wrong, eg it says 'Chronic disease does not discriminate.' Bhattacharya knows this is false:

After some time pedaling… MFer those supplements are not even actually awarded to the trainee. They go to the PI, which by the system is often white men, to increase their productivity. The good faculty at least created a strong training plan to support someone for a part of their training.

Excerpt 1) apparently chronic disease “does not discriminate” even though there are well-documented health disparities in nearly every disease category Excerpt 2) apparently the NIH Director thinks the diversity supplement program only was about race, even though the eligibility criteria was broad

“Curing DEI” one of the many things that I think are going to make our nation healthier. (NOT!) As the pipeline to support early-career scientists withers away, and one of the most wide-scale censorship campaigns commences…

BOLT UP ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️

"I've had to trim back a lot of my hiring, and I've also had to trim back a lot of the overarching goals" Hearing this a lot recently. Bold claims about allowing us to innovate are not our reality… Great story by @aniloza.bsky.social and @jaspar.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/12/08/t...

Check out this piece from me, @abankston.bsky.social , @siararouzer.bsky.social, @kassstem.bsky.social , Crystal Hammond, & Amy Ralston! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Looking forward to forcing all of my future trainees and mentees to use only genzdplyr syntax for their projects. I was getting worried that I wouldn’t have a way to impose a unique form of academic hazing onto the future generation. Thank you for your service @hadley.nz

Received only a minor revision request after submission 1 for a manuscript for my 1st time ever! (Also my 1st senior author submission)

An interesting critique b/c while it is important to make sure our methods, results, and limitations reflect our claims, we don’t rly train people to become PRODUCERS of “better” data. In the interim analyzing what we have w/ the best methods available is good, but if the data is often a limitation…

We have a new paper in Science Advances proposing a simple test for bias: Is the same person treated differently when their race is perceived differently? Specifically, we study: is the same driver likelier to be searched by police when they are perceived as Hispanic rather than white? 1/

As I was leaving I saw out of the corner of my eye former CDC director Robert Redfield out of the corner of my eye. I figured I had to go see if he's speak with me. And he did: “We didn’t have anything like this” during Trump 1.0, he told me. “Bobby has gotten industry to sit down with him.”

This podcast was a doozy. Highly recommend giving it a listen. There are lots of really rough moments. I was struck by the pettiness in this section and general disrespect throughout the interview. The questions asked were all fair and should’ve been expected.

New #WTHealth podcast up: @joannekenen.bsky.social, @shefali.bsky.social and Paige Cunningham on what the GOP really wants on health care, how the D's may well have won the shutdown, and an interview with @avik.bsky.social on possibilities for bipartisanship... kffhealthnews.org/news/podcast...

Update we got steamrolled

I’ve had a lot of bad days as a Chargers fan but few were worse than them losing to the Jaguars 31-30 after being up 27-0 in the 2023 playoffs. I was hosting all my friends for that game, and it was MISERABLE. It’s a regular season game I know but a win today would mean a lot!

Won best student paper for the Health Sciences section @geronsociety.bsky.social 2025 Annual Meeting!! 🥳🥳🥳 There are so many losses in academia, so it’s nice to get a win every once in a while.

MPH & MS costs often exceed the cap on loans. This policy will make these programs infeasible for many. Most PhD programs explicitly or implicitly require a Masters degree. It’s a different conversation on if the prices of many programs are fair, but what’s the alternative pipeline for training…

"Trump’s HHS put me on “non-disciplinary” admin leave today. This was retaliation for speaking up. Moves like this are designed to silence us." www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Dteoop/

Can confirm! As of 2pm today I am on “non disciplinary” admin leave. I was given no reason. I was told it came down from HHS. I was given the name of an HHS attorney I could contact with questions. Haven’t gotten there. Will be updating!

Was a moderator on this panel. It was inspiring to hear so many senior scientists not mince words about the negative impact the One Big Beautiful Bill will have on cardiovascular health and the health of our nation. They spoke in plain language, and the audience left with some clear action items.

Requesting people change their grant titles b/c you disagree with them certainly does not seem like “radical transparency”, or “gold standard science”. Seems more like “censorship” to me, but who knows…

Passed my dissertation defense 👀🤭

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs - Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75% - Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60% - Social Sciences by 50–70% - History by 60% - Biology by 75% - The German department will lose all PhD seats - Sociology from six PhD students to zero

So... I am hearing from a couple of sources about warnings that citing grants in publications may be used to target investigators for association with "DEI" or other unmentionables. I am trying to get better information.

“Framing this reduction of fellowships solely as a hit to the poor trainees and their career aspirations is perpetuating this mistake. It would be far better to explain to all and sundry how the reduction in F31 support is a functional reduction in research funding.” #MedSky

A summary of training, fellowship, and career development awards Fiscal year 2025 (compared to fiscal year 2024) 1/12

In our new piece in @bmj.com, @michaeldgreen.com & I argue that diversity matters when it comes to medical school admission not only for fairness, equality, & equity but also because research shows that population health outcomes are better with a diverse medical workforce A matter of life & death

Cleansing your feed to let you know that my 1st practice dissertation defense today went well! 8 days left to shape things up and show all I know!

Looks like a great opportunity for pop health researchers... #demography #episky jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

The Trump administration and its allies have taken several steps to ensure that medical schools in the US dismantle all diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. It is patients who will be the victims of this, write @gavinyamey.bsky.social and @michaeldgreen.com www.bmj.com/content/391/...

“The intent of all these actions is clear: to terminate policies that create a diverse medical workforce—one that looks like America—and which has doctors with lived experience that gives them insights into their patients’ lives.” Because lived experience is critical to the delivery of care #MedSky

@ianlmorgan.bsky.social laying out how early career researchers are particularly being harmed in this moment. I think most of us would LOVE “radical transparency” and increased innovation in research. Right now we are facing the exact opposite

YES! We cite evidence showing: Black patients wait longer in the ER to be seen by a clinician (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26454472/), clinicians show racial bias in their assessment of a patient's credibility (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24378807/), & there are large racial inequalities in health outcomes

In a country where the race, gender, ethnicity, and SES of individuals dramatically shape their lived experience and health outcomes, claiming that medicine is blind to these factors is malpractice! Even if it’s complicated, it’s still important to think about diversity, equity, and inclusion!

🚨In a new piece that I co-authored with @michaeldgreen.com for @bmj.com, we argue that Trump's war on DEI in medical education will damage the health of Americans We present research evidence showing that a diverse medical workforce improves population health outcomes www.bmj.com/content/391/...

Not a typical post (🧵) on here, but just over 6 months ago, I successfully defended my dissertation alongside friends, family, my committee, and many loved ones. It was a wonderful day, and I have so many people to thank for their support over the past 3 years and more! (1/3)