{"id":4850,"date":"2026-07-29T22:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4850"},"modified":"2026-07-29T22:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:01:00","slug":"opinion-data-disruptions-put-powerful-maternal-and-child-health-tool-at-risk-harvard-t-h-chan-school-of-public-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4850","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Data disruptions put powerful maternal and child health tool at risk | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Child &amp; Maternal &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4792&quot; title=&quot;Bilimeters now in every Sanford <a href=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4761\" title=\"How wildfires impact your health\">Health<\/a> Sioux Falls clinic&#8221;&gt;Health<\/a><br \/>\nOpinion: Data disruptions put powerful maternal and child health tool at risk<figcaption>sommart \/ iStock<\/figcaption><p>Actions by the Trump administration have disrupted the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), a longstanding program that collects population-level data on maternal and infant health. In a July 23 JAMA Health Forum <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama-health-forum\/fullarticle\/2852259\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">perspective piece<\/a>, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health\u2019s Sara Bleich and co-authors argued that these moves have put at risk a powerful tool for tracking trends, identifying inequities, and evaluating the effectiveness of policies and interventions\u2014with the heaviest burden of this information gap falling on already-vulnerable populations.<\/p>\n<p>For nearly 40 years, U.S. cities, states, and territories have collected information from recently pregnant women about their behaviors and experiences\u00a0for PRAMS, with support and technical assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).\u00a0In 2025, the Trump administration shut down the national PRAMS data collection system, removed historical data from public access, and placed the CDC staff responsible for managing the program on administrative leave. Although funding has resumed, gaps in data, staffing losses, and interruptions in state participation threaten the program\u2019s effectiveness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the disruptions continue, or if PRAMS were ultimately discontinued, policymakers, <a href=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4786\" title=\"Pakistani researchers find link between the microbiome and premature birth : State of the World from NPR\">researchers<\/a>, and advocates will be flying blind, with no comparable dataset to guide responses to the ongoing maternal and infant mortality crisis or future public health threats,\u201d Bleich, professor of public health policy, and her co-authors wrote<\/p>\n<p>Read the JAMA Forum perspective piece: <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama-health-forum\/fullarticle\/2852259\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Losing Our Lens on Maternal and Infant Health\u2014The Consequences of Disrupting PRAMS<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Learn more<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mothers, infants in Mississippi at health risk due to lost data (Harvard Chan School news)<\/p>\n<p>Child &amp; Maternal Health<\/p>\n<h3>Sara Naomi Bleich<\/h3>\n<p>Professor of Public Health Policy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Child &amp; Maternal Health Opinion: Data disruptions put powerful maternal and child health tool at risk sommart \/ iStock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[499,500,80,498,501],"class_list":["post-4850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pregnancy","tag-data","tag-disruptions","tag-maternal","tag-opinion","tag-powerful"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4851,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions\/4851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}