HHS Priorities

As stewards of taxpayer funds, HHS must deliver real results for the American people. Today, I am announcing that HHS is adopting a unified strategy that aligns our priorities and funding to fulfill that promise. We will prioritize gold-standard science and carry forward the mission set out in the Make America Healthy Again Commission Report and the Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy to achieve better health outcomes for all Americans, especially our kids.

HHS will further empower its Operating and Staff Divisions to make funding decisions that reflect our priorities, advance scientific opportunity, strengthen the workforce, and ensure balance across programs—always consistent with the law and with court orders.

Taxpayer dollars are finite and sacred. They are entrusted to us to prudently invest in America's health and future. By setting clear priorities and aligning our goals, we will show the American people that we honor their trust—and that we will not rest until every dollar advances their health, independence, and dignity.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Secretary

Address the chronic disease epidemic

Curing the nation's chronic disease epidemic is the principal direction to Make America Healthy Again. HHS will prioritize programs that identify and address potential dietary, behavioral, medical, and environmental drivers of chronic disease, especially those that affect America's children, tribal communities and vulnerable populations.

Empower patients to make informed decisions about health care

Restoring transparency and trust to the public is crucial for patients to make the best decisions about health care for themselves and for their families. HHS will ensure that medically accurate materials or instructions with pharmaceutical or health-related recommendations include information on the full range of health risks, so that individuals, such as parents and guardians of minors, can make fully informed decisions about their health.

Prevent conflicts of interest

The public must know that unbiased science—evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest—guides the recommendations and programs of our health agencies. HHS will deprioritize partnerships with organizations that present conflicts of interest, politicize science, or otherwise compromise their objectivity or integrity in carrying out HHS-funded programs.

Achieve gold standard science

HHS has a robust plan to implement Gold Standard Science. To the extent permitted by law, HHS programs will prioritize programs and organizations that exhibit strategies to promote the tenets of Gold Standard Science, like innovative program designs to promote constructive skepticism, replicability studies, and research on how to make every dollar of science funding go further.

Explore alternative testing models

HHS is committed to developing, validating, and scaling the use of human-biology-based new approach methodologies (NAMs) to complement animal models and enhance investigations. HHS will prioritize funding opportunities and infrastructure for non-animal approaches to improve human health.

Further our understanding of autism

HHS will prioritize initiatives to understand the etiology and the treatment and care needs of the broad spectrum of people with autism to improve their health outcomes. To the extent permitted by law, HHS will prioritize programs and partnerships with organizations that move beyond studying genetic risk factors for autism towards prevention.

Toxins

HHS will prioritize protecting children and families from harmful chemical exposures by addressing the impact of toxic substances in food, water, air, and consumer products. Many harmful substances accumulate and persist in people over time, magnifying their risks during vulnerable developmental windows. We will work with federal partners to strengthen oversight of plastics, PFAS, and other high-risk substances, and ensure that guidance and safety standards reflect independent, gold-standard science. Protecting children's health across their lifespan will be the guiding principle of this effort.

HHS will improve transparency in food and product safety reviews, close loopholes that may allow unsafe chemicals into the marketplace, and expand surveillance of chemicals found in blood, breastmilk, and other human tissues to guide stronger protections.

Investigate and care for those with Long COVID

While the COVID-19 pandemic is over, many Americans are still struggling with its aftermath through a range of ongoing symptoms sometimes called Long COVID. HHS will prioritize studying the demography, features, and care of Long COVID patients, as well as funding programs to address Long COVID symptoms, severity, duration or etiology.

Advance the scientific understanding of the aging process

Aging is a leading risk factor for most chronic diseases that affect older Americans. HHS will prioritize research that advances our understanding of the biological mechanisms of aging and develops interventions that target aging processes to improve health span and reduce disease burden.

Use digital tools and artificial intelligence to improve health

Technological breakthroughs in areas like artificial intelligence provide exciting new possibilities for science and medicine. HHS will prioritize programs that research or implement the best uses of digital health tools for prevention of disease and to improve health status and health outcomes.

Data Privacy

Americans own and should have control over their personal data.  HHS will assure the privacy and individual stewardship of Americans' data–that held by HHS and that regulated by HHS policies.  HHS will maintain federated data architectures and strong access controls, to give the highest levels of protection to individuals' personal information.

Usher in a deflationary era in healthcare costs 

Achieving affordable healthcare for all Americans is essential to Make America Healthy Again. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will lead efforts to drive system-wide deflation in healthcare costs through value-based care models that prioritize efficiency, transparency, enhanced competition, and other innovative reforms. These initiatives will simultaneously advance patient health outcomes by emphasizing preventive care, personalized treatments, and access to high-quality services for underserved communities.

Strengthen the health care workforce

The backbone of a strong health care system equipped to Make America Healthy Again is a strong and sustainable health care workforce. HHS will prioritize programs and policies that promote the development of a resilient health care workforce equipped to meet the needs of all American patients, including those in rural, tribal, and underserved areas, while respecting their conscience rights.

Promote patient safety

HHS is committed to making health care delivery safer and more effective for all Americans. HHS will prioritize programs that uncover and implement changes that can benefit large numbers of patients in significant ways or profoundly and substantially benefit smaller patient groups.

Promote work and self-sufficiency

Work is not just a means of income; it instills dignity, responsibility, and opportunity. To the extent permitted by law, HHS will prioritize programs and policies that promote work as the primary pathway to self-sufficiency and economic independence.

Foster marriage and family formation

Strong families are the cornerstone of a healthy society. HHS will support programs that encourage marriage, recognizing its importance in fostering economic and social well-being. To the extent permitted by law, HHS will also prioritize programs that encourage the formation and stability of two-parent families, valuing the unique and critical roles of both mothers and fathers. Further, HHS is committed to pursuing policies that make it possible for American families to own a home and raise their children on a single income, as was possible for generations of Americans before.

End illegal race discrimination

So-called "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) programs, which are based on ideologies that promote differential treatment of people based on race or ethnicity and rely on poorly defined concepts or on unfalsifiable theories, are fundamentally anti-American.

HHS will not tolerate unlawful discrimination. Our civil rights laws prohibit funding recipients from conducting DEI programs in ways that distribute burdens or benefits on the basis of race.

Rather than supporting DEI programs, HHS will end race-based special preferences in grant making and instead direct resources to programs that advance the health and longevity of all Americans. Specifically, HHS training programs will focus on training future medical providers and scientists to lead American preeminence in health for the 21^st century. These programs should be based on merit, follow civil rights law, and not unlawfully discriminate against anyone.

Combat gender ideology and protect children

It is an HHS priority to ensure our programs accurately reflect science, including the biological reality that a person's sex as either male or female is unchangeable and determined by objective biology, as reflected in HHS's guidance promulgating sex-based definitions.

HHS released a comprehensive review of the evidence and best practices for promoting the health of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. This review, informed by an evidence-based medicine approach, found medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, that seek to reject a minor's sex are unsupported by the evidence and have an unfavorable risk/benefit profile.

HHS will work to protect children from these practices, and, to the extent allowable by applicable federal law and any relevant court orders, HHS will deprioritize programs that engage in these practices where permissible. HHS funds will also not support the costs of such practices where not required by the law or court order.

End taxpayer subsidies for illegal immigration

Illegal immigration presents significant threats to our nation. HHS programs will not encourage or support illegal immigration. Consistent with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) and other applicable law, HHS will ensure its programs benefit Americans first by not supporting unqualified aliens.

Reaffirm parental authority and protect religious liberty and conscience rights

"In God We Trust" is the national motto (36 U.S.C. § 302), faith in God is the cornerstone of the American Republic, and the Founding Fathers enshrined the free exercise of religion in the First Amendment. It is an HHS priority to ensure that all programs respect religious liberty and rights of conscience, including by complying with Federal conscience laws, such as those protecting against forced participation in abortion.

HHS programs will defend the constitutional rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children by ensuring that the programs it conducts or funds protect children's innocence and respect parents' right to protect their children from exposure to content that burdens the exercise of their religious beliefs.

End crime and disorder on America's streets

HHS is committed to making America's streets and communities safe again and ending the vagrancy, disorderly behavior, and violent attacks that have made our nation's cities unsafe. HHS grants will prioritize evidence-based programs and deprioritize programs that fail to achieve adequate outcomes, including so-called "harm reduction" or "safe consumption" efforts, which only facilitate illegal drug use and its attendant harm. HHS will deprioritize support for "housing first" policies that fail to ensure accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency.

HHS does not support drug injection sites for illegal drugs, or so-called "safe consumption sites," or the use or distribution of illegal drugs and associated paraphernalia. HHS will ensure that its funds reduce rather than promote homelessness by supporting, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable federal law, comprehensive services for individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorder, including crisis intervention services.

Enforce the Hyde Amendment

The Hyde Amendment protects taxpayer funds administered by the HHS from being used for elective abortion. HHS will prioritize programs and funding mechanisms that respect the dignity of human life at all stages of development, improve maternal health care, strengthen the family, and do not use taxpayer funding for elective abortion, consistent with the Hyde Amendment.

Improve oversight of foreign funded institutions

All HHS offices should consider whether there is a justification for conducting a program at a foreign site rather than a domestic one. HHS will prioritize the latter over the former when justified and consider whether each project involving foreign collaboration will likely lead to better health for Americans. When such projects are appropriate, HHS will take proactive steps to monitor and oversee the foreign collaborators and collaboration sites to ensure that they comply with the applicable U.S. laws governing the receipt of HHS funds and the programs in which the collaboration occurs.

Ending dangerous gain-of-function research

Dangerous gain-of-function research creates unacceptable risks to public health and national security. HHS will prioritize programs and policies that strengthen independent oversight, enforce strict biosafety and biosecurity standards, and close potential loopholes in both federally and non-federally funded research. NIH has already terminated foreign projects in countries of concern, suspended remaining covered research pending new policy, and directed all awardees to immediately review and report ongoing work. HHS will ensure taxpayer dollars do not currently support high-risk gain-of-function projects abroad or at home, while also working to establish more robust safeguards and to maintain America's global leadership in biotechnology, biodefense, and health research.