HHS Has Many Health Equity Offices. What Will Become of Them?
Page Med today history.
Of five major HHS agency offices focused on health equity, only one has taken down its website amid President Trump’s executive orders aimed at ending the federal government’s diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives.
The FDA’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity website has been taken down, although it remained online as recently as last Thursday.
Websites remain active for the following agencies:
- HHS Office of Minority Health
- CMS Office of Minority Health
- NIH National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
- CDC Office of Health Equity
The Health Resources website & The Office of Health Equity Services Administration (HRSA) was also eliminated.
However, it is unclear whether the executive orders only address DEIA initiatives focused on the federal health workforce, or whether they also address these agencies’ initiatives aimed at improving health equity in the general population. If these are not public-facing programs, it is unclear why the FDA and HRSA removed the websites.
Few agencies returned a request for comment from Page Med today. The NIMHD press team declined an interview request.
Last week, Trump issued two executive orders on the DEIA. One was the rescission of an executive order from President Biden focused on promoting DEIA in the federal workforce. The other called for an end to “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility’ mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities within the federal government, by whatever name they appear.”
Agencies are expected to terminate all DEIA-related offices and positions, as well as programs, grants and contracts, within 60 days, according to the executive order.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) followed up on a memo to agency leadership that was shared with Page Med todaydescribing “the steps to close the offices of the DEIA agency”.
Agency directors were given until 5 p.m. last Wednesday to notify all their employees of the closure and for their colleagues to be upfront if they noticed “coded or imprecise language” that would serve to “disguise” DEIA initiatives.
The memo included a template that agency heads could use to send to their employees, which HHS used in an email to employees shared with Page Med today. HHS used the template almost verbatim, including the part regarding coded language, noting that there would be “no negative consequences if timely communication of this information were made.” However, failure to report this information within 10 days could result in adverse consequences.”
The email also included the model’s line about DEIA initiatives: “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.”
The OPM memo also calls on agency heads to notify all DEIA office employees that they will be immediately placed on paid administrative leave and will be required to remove all “outward-facing media,” specifically calling out websites and social media.
Finally, by January 31, OPM wants all agency directors to provide it with a “written plan to execute a reduction in force action regarding employees who work in a DEI office.”
Although it is unclear whether HHS’s Health Equity Offices will be closed, DEIA language has been removed from some agencies’ websites. STATUS reported finding 10 examples of DEIA-related pages on the FDA website that had been removed. This included a page for the Oncology Center of Excellence’s Equity Initiative and the Center for Devices and Radiological Health’s Office of Equity and Innovative Development. Other missing pages also included draft clinical trial diversity guidelines and a health equity podcast, STATUS reported.
The National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also removed language about DEI goals from some mission statements, and the NIH removed websites related to sexual and gender minority health. STATUS note.
Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs bragged in a press release Monday that it had placed nearly 60 DEIA employees on administrative leave, saving the agency more than $8 million in combined annual salary. It also identified DEIA-related contracts totaling more than $6.1 million that it is working to cancel.
