Opening Up Mortality Data for Health Research
Summary
Comprehensive and reliable mortality data is vital for public health research. Improving our infrastructure for managing these data will generate insights that promote longevity and healthy aging, as well as enable more effective response to rapidly evolving public health challenges like those posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. A modernized mortality data system will ultimately be self-sustaining through access fees, but will require federal investment to update state reporting infrastructure and data use agreements. The Biden-Harris administration should launch an effort to modernize our nation’s infrastructure for aggregating, managing, and providing research access to mortality data.
Given the unreliability of private market funding for agricultural biotechnology R&D, substantial federal funding through research programs such as AgARDA is vital for accelerating R&D.
“Given the number of existential crises we must collectively confront, I have found policy entrepreneurship to be a fruitful avenue towards doing some of that work.”
Outdated Bureau of Labor Statistics classifications hampers the federal government’s ability to design and implement effective policies for emerging technologies sectors.
Establishing an NIH Office of Infection-Associated Chronic Illness Research can guard against the long-term effects of Covid and lead to novel breakthroughs across many less understood diseases.