** From anecdote to evidence: new study maps US federal censorship of public health research

Research project

"Mapping Government Censorship" research project

We’ve shared a lot of stories in our newsletters about the damage being done by the Trump administration’s censorship of research, such as the deletion or alteration of ~400 federal datasets and the illegal firing of 24 National Science Board (NSB) members. These stories are powerful, but it’s all too easy to write them off as a series of individual incidents rather than an intentional pattern.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new report by Research Consulting, one of our organizational signatories, that provides what we believe is the first rigorous, clear, and citable baseline study of the aggregated impact of U.S. government censorship and how these actions are affecting research. Conducted in partnership with #DefendResearch, From anecdote to evidence: Mapping the impact of US government action on public health research, assesses US federal censorship of knowledge in public health research, an area where the consequences are especially high.

The focus of this report is on public health and epidemiology, but the methodology has been designed to be reproducible and expandable to other domains. To complement the report, we will soon be releasing a set of visuals and other outputs for use in news reporting and advocacy efforts. Collectively, these resources will concretely demonstrate the disastrous impact that this administration’s censorship is having on public health research and public health itself – and how that impact will continue to be felt long into the future.

View the final report, executive summary, methodology, and data. Read the press release.

Help amplify this work!

Spread the word about the study. Let your community know about this important research and how to be involved in ending censorship! Keep an eye on this page and our website for new resources that will help you talk about it. Share the recording of our September 15th webinar about the study with Research Consulting’s Founder and Managing Director, Rob Johnson. Rob explains Research Consulting’s support for #DefendResearch and for this work as follows: “The events that we've seen unfolding in the US since early 2025 seem to me to run directly counter to the realization of our vision, and I believe we may well see similar developments in the UK and Europe over the coming years. I immediately identified with the work being done by the #DefendResearch to resist the growing censorship of knowledge and research in the United States and wanted to find ways that we could help.”
Contribute to a crowdfunding campaign. Research Consulting has run the first phase of this project for free. They expect the finished study to cost in excess of $50,000, representing several months of researcher effort, plus software licensing, design and development of the final outputs -- and hope to recover half of these costs through donations. We are asking the #DefendResearch community to help us raise the $25,000 needed to cover the costs of this important project. We’re very grateful to another of our organizational signatories, the Association of University Presses (AUPresses), for their generous seed donation to get the fundraising campaign started. Any amount you can afford will make a difference, no matter how small or large.

Recent webinar

September 15, 2026 -- 11 am ET

From Anecdote to Evidence: Mapping the Impact of US Government Censorship on Public Health Research

Since January 2025, public health and epidemiology research in the United States has faced funding withdrawals, data removal, and institutional pressure — but the evidence has so far remained largely anecdotal. In this webinar, Rob Johnson presents findings from a study by Research Consulting, undertaken with #DefendResearch, that applies a reproducible, AI-assisted methodology to map these impacts at scale. The conversation examines what the evidence shows so far, why moving from anecdote to pattern matters for defending research, and how the open methodology could extend to other fields under pressure.