MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Health disparity - that's among hundreds of terms the Trump administration is reportedly telling federal agencies to avoid or scrub from government websites, research and databases. Some researchers, though, point out their work on health disparities actually benefits rural white populations that are often overlooked in debates about diversity and equity. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Dr. Fola May studies diseases of the digestive tract and runs a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, looking for ways to detect disease earlier in various populations. For that work, her lab relies on federal funds from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
FOLA MAY: I would say I'm very dependent on it.
NOGUCHI: So as those agencies began canceling grants promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, May worried - would work like hers, looking at health disparities, also get swept in?
MAY: I'm terrified.
NOGUCHI: Addressing disparities has been a central focus of health care, and especially since the pandemic laid bare how access to care can affect so many aspects of health. May says that's abruptly shifted.
MAY: One of the biggest challenges right now is that people are becoming very polarized about disparities research, and they're thinking that, oh, they are resources that are going to groups that are not me.
NOGUCHI: That's a misconception, May says, citing her own research on cancer screenings.
MAY: We have to recognize that disparities are affecting everyone, not just racial and ethnic minorities. I'll give an example. White individuals that live in rural areas of the United States are less likely to get a screening test.
NOGUCHI: May says conflating health disparities with racial division or political advantages will discourage those like her trying to improve the health of people overall. And she worries about an uncertain sense of censorship that hovers over her research.
MAY: We aren't sure what we can say in our grants. I very freely before wrote about disparities and equity in my grants. Actually, the NIH had a requirement that you had to write about equity and disparities in every grant.
NOGUCHI: Across the nation's scientific communities, researchers say they feel confused and concerned.
K: It feels like there's no adults in the room.
NOGUCHI: That's K, a clinician who works at the VA. NPR agreed not to use her full name because she fears losing her job. She researches why rural veterans, and women in particular, see doctors less and die younger than counterparts in cities. K says colleagues circulated lists of words to avoid, but K says they include words like women, female, gender and underserved, making it hard to accurately present data she's collected.
K: We're actively omitting really important details and hoping what we're reporting is still accurate, still authentic and not misleading, while threading this needle of not having the work flagged or torn down.
NOGUCHI: Electra Paskett, a longtime cancer researcher at Ohio State University, has sought clarity.
ELECTRA PASKETT: Does it fall into the DEI category? You cannot contact them to get an answer.
NOGUCHI: She says her partners at NIH can't answer her questions because of a White House gag order still partially in effect. The NIH and VA did not respond to NPR's requests for comment. Paskett says work overcoming disparities in cancer care has dramatically increased survival, yet she worries many voters and politicians may undermine that progress because they don't understand disparities.
PASKETT: We hope that that is not under attack because if we want to cure cancer, we want to eliminate cancer, which is a bipartisan goal, then we have to make sure that we're addressing all populations.
NOGUCHI: Yuki Noguchi, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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