Since the Trump administration took office in January 2025, the workforce at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has weathered uncertainty and change.

Mass firings, communication freezes, political interference in the CDC’s scientific mission and a revolving door of leaders have created a challenging work environment for the CDC’s employees.

I’m a public health researcher who studies how working conditions affect employee health and well-being. I also worked at the CDC from 2012 to 2020. Given the turmoil imposed on the CDC workforce since Inauguration Day, I worked with a team of researchers at Michigan State University to conduct an anonymous survey of more than 600 CDC workers.

We found a CDC workforce concerned by a declining ability to achieve the agency’s public health mission, a shrinking and overworked staff and wide-ranging effects that threaten Americans’ health.

CDC’s mission is to protect and improve the health of Americans, which it fulfills by preventing, detecting and controlling disease. CDC also staffs a pool of public health experts who are rapidly deployed to respond to public health emergencies – including disease outbreaks – worldwide. The cuts to CDC put these functions in jeopardy.

Key CDC posts empty as Ebola outbreak grows

As an explosive Ebola virus outbreak takes hold in Central Africa, infectious disease experts are questioning the U.S. government’s ability to effectively respond to public health emergencies following the cuts to the CDC and foreign aid, as well as the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization.

The CDC remains without strong leadership at a critical point in the outbreak response.

In August 2025, Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired CDC Director Susan Monarez after she refused to accept political interference with the agency, causing multiple senior CDC leaders to resign in protest. Almost one year later, the CDC’s top leadership positions remain vacant. The agency has no director, principal deputy director, chief of staff or chief medical officer to........

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