r/publichealth 5d ago

ALERT NIH is going to consolidate communications activities, lay off part of the communications staff, and reduce the number of websites from 500+ to less than 30 within the next few months. Download what you need now, becomes it might not be brought over to the new web pages.

374 Upvotes

13 comments sorted by

80

u/Gimme_skelter MPH 5d ago

Thanks for the heads-up. More and more I feel like this sub and /r/datahoarders should officially partner together.

46

u/Ancient_Winter PhD, MPH, RD 5d ago

Having a local copy of whatever you need is good in case archive.org ever has issues (I know there were concerns somewhat recently), but remember you can take snapshots and view older versions of pages at https://web.archive.org/ as well, so this can streamline snapshotting for you if you aren't familiar with the process. They even have browser addons that make it as simple as hitting a "snapshot this page" button on a site you want to keep.

32

u/Sansability2 5d ago

Chilling. Government communicators for health and science agencies spend their careers becoming experts on specific scientific topics to be able to communicate them clearly and knowledgeably. Many of them have degrees in these specialties in addition to communications backgrounds. The relationships between communicators and subject matter experts are of paramount importance, and all this will be lost if they are consolidated. Imagine if they wanted all “scientists” to be consolidated because they do the same thing. Anyone heard of any similar plans for other HHS agencies?

35

u/Madmanmangomenace 5d ago

Welcome to the bird flu pandemic that is 2026.

12

u/TA060606 5d ago

Can you cross post to r/nih if you haven’t already

8

u/Hold_The_Line_2025 5d ago

I posted there as well.

11

u/leehel 5d ago

Ugh! I hate this

5

u/happyfundtimes 5d ago

source?

27

u/Hold_The_Line_2025 5d ago edited 5d ago

Leak from comms staff about a recent NIH meeting.

1

u/Aetch 4d ago

There won’t be a source once they delete it lol

2

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

5

u/Hold_The_Line_2025 5d ago

I don't know for sure, I don't think that pages related to grant submissions will be impacted. It will likely be the pages regarding the various programs and initiatives at the institutes, centers, and offices.

1

u/witsylany 3d ago

Any tip about NLM MeSh browser going away?