A recent analysis article published by NPR and authored by Rhitu Chatterjee has examined the uncertain future of the long-running U.S. federal survey, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The survey is currently at risk following significant staffing cuts due to a U.S. federal government overhaul led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and initiated by Donald Trump. So far, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has cut 10,000 jobs, with another 10,000 employees accepting buyouts or early retirement.

“Those of us who work in the field and also a lot of states, they know [the survey] is one of the major tools for assessing behavioural health in America,” said Sean Esteban McCabe, director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health at the University of Michigan, in his interview with NPR. Recently, McCabe and colleagues published a study in JAMA Pediatrics, which used the data from the survey and demonstrated that 1 in 4 children in the United States has a parent with a substance use disorder.

Experts in public health and addiction research have also raised concerns regarding the survey’s critical role in revealing national and regional mental health and addiction trends, such as teen opioid addiction or parental substance use. “Unless we know how many people are affected by common mental health problems, it will really hamper our efforts to determine whether the interventions that we’re trying to implement are having any kind of effect,” said Katherine Keyes, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, who has also used the NSDUH data for years for her research.

Moreover, Keyes added that the data also reflects the success of past efforts to address substance use among young people. “You look at factors like cigarette and tobacco use among young people, which is at extraordinary lows. Binge drinking and alcohol use has been declining among young people.”

According to Emily Hilliard, press secretary at HHS, the survey will proceed as HHS undergoes reorganization, with Kennedy planning to address mental health and substance use through a new agency called the Administration for a Healthy America. However, Hoenig expresses uncertainty about the survey’s future without her team of scientists, and the importance of making its findings available to the public. “If that information is not being disseminated out into the public, we will lose lives,” Hoenig said. “We will lose lives to overdose. We will [lose] lives to suicide. But these are entirely preventable.”