Photo courtesy of Pew Research Center.
On January 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump announced that the United States will be withdrawing from the World Health Organization.
The World Health Organization (WHO) leads a vast network of public health agencies, laboratories, and international scientists that regularly track emerging outbreaks and measure data. This organization plays a key role in protecting global health by tackling the root causes of disease, strengthening health systems, and responding to health emergencies; this includes outbreaks, often in high-risk areas in other countries that are not associated with WHO.
Professor Ann Garton, a faculty member of the SAU Nursing program and Director of the Institute for Person-Centered Care, offers her insights on the World Health Organization. “To understand how changes to the World Health Organization (WHO) might impact the U.S., we first need to recognize the organization’s global role.
“The WHO, an agency of the United Nations, includes 194 member countries and a multinational staff working to combat both communicable and chronic diseases worldwide. It provides a neutral platform for collaboration, allowing countries to discuss health issues across borders. Since health transcends national boundaries, global cooperation is crucial to creating a healthier world.
“All countries will be affected by the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO, as it serves as a trusted source of diplomacy and scientifically vetted information for them. This decision weakens U.S. influence with international allies and jeopardizes global health, which ultimately impacts every U.S. citizen.”
The New York Times states this decision made by President Trump is “… a move that public health experts say will undermine the nation’s standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.”
By removing the United States from this organization, the country may lose access to the world’s global public health data and leave agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), ultimately leaving our public health officials less prepared in the form of vaccines and pandemic information. The White House stated in the Presidential Executive Order that its withdrawal was prompted by “the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Dr. James Bang, a professor in St. Ambrose’s Economics Department, explores how economic shifts will impact the future of the country and the implications for individuals, particularly students, who are concerned about what these changes mean for their futures.
“It will mostly affect our reputation with the rest of the world. Many countries throughout the world see us as imperialistic and disruptive. Development assistance, like investments in global public health through the WHO and other international organizations, offset some of these negative views toward the US.
“A secondary effect of withdrawing will be the external effects of the spread of disease from other countries into the US. We know that several diseases that had been previously eradicated have emerged in various outbreaks, including outbreaks of measles and recently tuberculosis in the US. Even a few years before COVID, isolated cases of Ebola arrived in the US from people traveling to and from Africa. Sharing information with and from other countries about these outbreaks is an important element of minimizing the external effects on other countries.
“We’re currently experiencing significant effects of outbreaks of bird flu, which has currently mostly been observed in chickens and cows in the US, but has occasionally spread to humans, notably in Asia in the 2000s. While we have so far avoided effects on humans in the US, it has been the single biggest contributor to the high price of eggs.”
According to The Associated Press, public health officials among the CDC were ordered to immediately halt working with the World Health Organization. This decision reflects concerns raised by Garton, who remarked that the removal stems from errors made both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Garton points out, “Personally, I feel that it is tragic not just for our country but for the rest of the world. No organization is perfect, mistakes must be investigated, and new innovative ways to enhance the work to make us safer should be explored. I honestly don’t know that we can even call out ‘mistakes’. Global health is complex and information changes quickly. We respond as we can with the information available to us. Hence why information and communication is so important for global health.”
This aligns with the view shared by Melissa Sharer, Associate Professor in Public Health and Director of Masters in Public Health, who stresses the need for global coordination. “The short answer is infectious disease has no borders, as such we need global coordination (which is part of the WHO mandate) to keep our world and the USA healthy.”
If you would like to learn more on this subject, visit this article from the JHU Public Health Department.
