The AHS Index is a new way to look at data that illuminates a snapshot of our world today. It is intended to highlight health inequities and spark conversation, debate, outrage, and wonder.
Number of years that have passed since Martin Luther King Jr. gave an impassioned speech at the Medical Committee for Human Rights Convention, saying “of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death”: 59
Year that Medicare and Medicaid were established, providing insurance coverage to older and lower-income people, and advancing the desegregation of hospitals: 1965
Year that the federal government declared racism a public health threat, an announcement that is no longer available on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website: 2021
Number of webpages removed from the CDC website between Jan. 20 and Jan. 31, including research articles on preventing chronic disease, overdose prevention training, vaccine guidelines for pregnant people, and resources on health disparities, some of which were later restored or restored with edits: >3,000
Number of phrases being removed from all CDC communications, including “transgender,” “LGBT,” “nonbinary,” “pregnant person,” and “DEI”: ~20
Percent of transgender youth who say their mental health is poor, a finding based on federal data that was removed and may not be reinstated: 75%
Number of scientists who attended a data-thon on Jan. 31 to save and recover federal health data from the recent purge: >100