Newsletter Archive
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Cancer Risk Is Still There, Even If the Data Isn't
August 20, 2026by Tai LungRead MoreCan you estimate someone's cancer risk from the air they breathe? Not exactly. Every person has different genetics, lifestyles, occupations, and environmental exposures that change over time. Air pollution varies from day to day, season to season, and even block to block. But scientists can make remarkably reliable estimates of a neighborhood’s cancer risk based on the type and amount of toxic air pollution.
After a year-long delay, this April, EPA released the latest air toxics data, which only included raw air data downloads. This year, for the first time in nearly 25 years, the air toxics data did not include cancer risk estimates.
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Take Action! Transformed-Medicaid Statistical Information System and More
August 14, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreProposed Rule of the Week: Transformed—Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS). CMS is revising T-MSIS, the national beneficiary- and claims-level Medicaid and CHIP database, to support three changes. States will report updated immigration-status information and whether coverage ended because of a status change or failed verification. States must also report monthly whether adults subject to the Medicaid work requirement met the 80-hour standard, their qualifying activities and exemptions, and whether they were disenrolled for noncompliance. Finally, CMS will add a code separately identifying per-member-per-month home-health payments, which are currently grouped under “other,” to improve oversight of those programs.
Comments due September 21.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
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How Will Methodology Restrictions Affect Demographic and Economic Data?
August 12, 2026by Beth Jarosz, Jae June Lee, and Chris DickRead MoreOn June 4, 2026 the Department of Commerce issued a new order “Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products” (DAO 216-26) that limits the types of privacy protection methods that the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis can use for their data products.
Data users noted early on that the order would likely affect data availability, and we are now beginning to learn the scope of that impact. For example, on August 4, 2026 the Census Bureau announced an indefinite delay in releasing data from the American Community Survey.
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How Do We Track Terminations of Federal Data?
August 10, 2026by Chris Dick and Denice RossRead MoreFederal data benefit American lives and livelihoods in ways most people never see, touching every corner of our lives. This includes a farmer pricing a crop, a county planning a hospital, a business siting a warehouse — all of these decisions use federal data. Other data save patients money by identifying generic drugs that can replace more expensive brand names, help airplanes avoid deadly bird strikes, and warn consumers about recalls of dangerous products.
Because these data are mostly invisible, their disappearance is invisible too — that is, until we need the data and they aren’t there anymore.
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Take Action! Removal of EEOC Reporting Requirements and More
August 06, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreProposed Rule of the Week: Removal of Reporting Requirements. EEOC is proposing to abolish all six federal EEO workforce reports and their related recordkeeping requirements, ending the annual EEO-1 collection from large private employers and covered federal contractors as well as reporting by apprenticeship programs, unions, state and local governments, public schools, and colleges. The government would lose standardized data showing how workers are distributed by race and ethnicity, sex, occupation, salary level, and other employment categories. Although EEOC argues that the reports are burdensome, potentially unconstitutional, and may encourage discrimination, the data have long supported enforcement, employer self-assessment, research, and public accountability; eliminating them would leave the agency more dependent on individual complaints and case-specific requests, making systemic discrimination substantially harder to identify and document.
Comments due August 24.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.