Before Donald J. Trump was re-elected president, health and science reporter Laura Ungar and investigative reporter Michelle R. Smith began discussing how pandemic-era public health funding would soon run dry—and what that would mean for local health departments across the country.
They had covered this before. Five years earlier, they teamed up on a series about America’s underfunded public health infrastructure. This time, they anticipated the consequences of major federal cuts and set out to document how those decisions in Washington were already rippling through communities nationwide.
As the scope of the budget reductions became clearer, the pair spoke with dozens of local and state health departments, tracking layoffs and cutbacks in critical public services such as vaccination clinics, restaurant inspections and outbreak response.
Ungar traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, with health and science videojournalist Mary Conlon to document how a large health department was handling the mounting pressures. Even as some public officials became hesitant to speak after the cuts took hold, the team’s existing relationships allowed them to continue gathering firsthand accounts.
They also spoke with recently laid-off CDC workers, illustrating the human cost of the sweeping reductions. As the situation evolved, the team monitored court filings, public testimony, and pored over a 1,200-page presidential budget proposal that was released just hours before their story went live.
The result was a comprehensive, deeply reported look at how federal cuts were gutting the invisible but essential machinery of local public health. The story ran atop the Boston Globe’s homepage for much of the day and was widely cited across social media by public health insiders.
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