elijahjwatson.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Brilliant protest. Yosemite National Park workers hung an upside-down American flag — traditionally a symbol of distress or a national threat — thousands of feet off the ground on the side of El Capitan.

submitted 22 hours ago • 105 comments

SCOOP: The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, arguably the nation's most powerful scientific organization, is bending to political pressure and removing terms like "health equity" from pending reports. Members are not happy. Story by me: www.statnews.com/2025/02/20/n...

submitted 3 days ago • 35 comments

For 38 years, PRAMS has collected critical data on maternal-child health with the goal to reduce infant morbidity and mortality. CDC has officially halted the 2024 PRAMS data collection for the participating 46 states and the future is uncertain.

submitted 3 days ago • 30 comments

NIH indirects case update: Hearing ongoing now, and I'll try to live tweet some notable exchanges. Prior to more detailed arguments, Judge Kelley starts off with a few point questions to both sides: (I'm paraphrasing here)

submitted 2 days ago • 16 comments

There are two people in Congress-the chairs of the Senate & House Appropriations Committees-who have enormous power over the illegal impoundment of funds appropriated by Congress, which is sowing chaos across the US. They need to be relentlessly contacted at their offices, in person and by phone. 1/

submitted 3 days ago • 41 comments

SCOOP: On his second day as HHS secretary, RFK Jr., the onetime environmentalist, killed climate change programs at NIH that research and prepare for the health effects of extreme weather and a warming planet. This is not going to make Americans healthy. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

submitted 4 days ago • 531 comments

Join us! Science Homecoming helps scientists reconnect with communities by writing about the importance of science funding in their hometown newspapers. We’ve mapped every small newspaper in the U.S. and provide resources to get you started. Help science get back home 🧪🔬🧬 🏠 sciencehomecoming.com

submitted 5 days ago • 39 comments

New blog post! Sometimes, when reviewing a manuscript, it's really unclear to me what precisely the authors are trying to do -- which makes it hard to evaluate the work properly. So, here's some advice for how to ensure that readers don't get lost. www.the100.ci/2025/02/17/r...

submitted 6 days ago • 6 comments

Thanks to all of the NIHers and their friends who reached out to me. I am still here (DM me or Signal jeremymberg.78) I still have a very incomplete picture but based on what I have been told, the damage to NIH and to many wonderful people who work(ed) there is/was impossible for me to imagine 1/n

submitted 7 days ago • 8 comments

It's gonna be very interesting when MAGA realizes that "disadvantaged backgrounds" and "DEI" aren't code words for black and brown people. You live in a very rural area with limited access to education and health care? Well then DEI is for you too my guy...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

The Epidemic Intelligence Service, a nationally recognized program that has run since the 1950s, is a critical component of Americas public health training landscape. 🦠 (1/)

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

Happy to see this great op-ed in our local newspaper. If you’re lucky enough to have a local paper, this is a good way to reach out to people in your community. Weaving facts in with a personal story or important local issues is an effective way to get people to think and change minds.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

This has been one of the most meaningful and rewarding (and sobering) collaborations I have been involved in, especially the integration of advanced stat methods and deep substantive expertise. Crucial empirical data and results that we hope can inform policy discussions.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

I got Beyoncé tickets and that's all that's getting me through the next three months

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Click on the magnifying glass icon in your browser bar, then select "DuckDuckGo" as your default search engine.

submitted 12 days ago • 694 comments

Imagine if university presidents instead of cowering, called up their faculty too speak in a round-the-clock marathon across the nation about how their research serves every American who has ever faced illness and disease.

submitted 12 days ago • 36 comments

If you were like “huh, weird that only the state AGs are filing a suit against the NIH indirect costs plan” turns out universities filed today as well. Complaint here: www.acenet.edu/Documents/AA...

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

In addition to the good news THIS IS A SIGN THAT PRESSURE WORKS Don’t give in to fascists when you still have the option of resisting 🧪

submitted 13 days ago • 10 comments

Key GOP senators push back against NIH funding cuts www.statnews.com/2025/02/10/k...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

We just launched a 16TB archive of every dataset that has been available on data.gov since November. This will be updated day by day as new datasets appear. It can be freely copied, and we're sharing the code behind it to help others make their own archives of data they depend on.

submitted 17 days ago • 45 comments

Useful, possibly timely, review and glossary of terms on social-to-biological research: how we "incorporate, biologically, the world in which we live, including our societal and ecological circumstances" bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal...

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

This is a rather telling statement. Nearly a third of women in Louisiana are Black. www.businessinsider.com/gop-senator-...

submitted 15 days ago • 5 comments

I wrote an op-ed in the Asheville Citizen-Times on why Trump’s attacks on public health, climate science, and diversity, equity, & inclusion are an attack on Western NC’s future. #episky #climatesky #wnc #medsky #anthrosky

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

On changes to #NIH indirect rates, there is a law in place that prohibits NIH from making such changes without the approval of Congress. See Division D, Title II Section 224 of The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law No: 118-47) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

submitted 16 days ago • 82 comments

Excellent 🧵 on this evening's NIH announcement of a dramatic reduction in indirect rates for research institutions, which amounts to a generational restructuring of the US research and development ecosystem. These cuts are effective immediately, not just for new grants but for existing ones.

submitted 16 days ago • 41 comments

Trials abandoned due to the stop-work order on USAID-funded research:

submitted 17 days ago • 8 comments

Questionnaires and data are still up @ipums.bsky.social: usa.ipums.org/usa/ Thanks to IPUMS for this and so much more!

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Sabotage. Criminal sabotage. "[The NSF] is planning to lay off between a quarter and a half of its staff in the next two months, a top National Science Foundation official said Tuesday." www.eenews.net/articles/sci...

submitted 19 days ago • 39 comments

The American Community Survey (ACS) is used for so many basic, fundamental statistics, like: How many people live in each state or congressional district? Are they married? Do they have children? Are they employed? What's their income? What health insurance do they have? And now it’s offline

submitted 19 days ago • 11 comments

A paper I've been working on for quite literally 10 years just came out It's a shitty time, for sure, but this paper is still cool and good, and I still want to you tell you all about it So gather 'round, folks, and hear the story of the 10 year paper! 1/n www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

submitted 19 days ago • 7 comments

One of the cruelest things about the NSF/NIH situations is that federal funders have been asking for acknowledgment about disparate impacts, inequality, etc. for years. To get a grant at all you had to (rightly) address those things. Now is the punishment for both caring and following the rules.

submitted 19 days ago • 14 comments

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

submitted 20 days ago • 1330 comments

Was able to back up the federal data I need for my dissertation and thesis so that I can graduate. My approved Philippines DHS project having gender-based violence in the title doesn't give me much hope for having continued access — so I just downloaded it all, even the waves I wasn't using.

submitted 23 days ago • 1 comment

Here's a checklist for backing up federal databases. Please share. Thanks. libraries.mit.edu/data-managem...

submitted 23 days ago • 3 comments

From a journalist friend: Just spreading the word. The CDC is purging data, so people should archive their favorite CDC datasets today, namely ones around race/ethnic diversity, LGBTQ, and reproductive health. Also health data involving climate. The youth risk behavior survey has already gone down.

submitted 23 days ago • 166 comments

New today: Death rates for Americans aged 25-44 have been rising since 2010. Their mortality is now 70% higher than it would be had pre-2011 mortality declines continued. w Rafeya Raquib, Katie Berry, Keeley Morris, & @astokespop.bsky.social 1/ jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

submitted 23 days ago • 2 comments

🚨If you use public data products from the CDC or other US federal agencies 🚨 Download them NOW [This is how I’m spending my Friday]

submitted 23 days ago • 4 comments

Was about to go to bed but figured I’d sleep better if I got up and backed up the raw ACS data I'm using for a project to a second location. Never used to worry about storing it in two places.

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Numerous studies have found a relationship between childhood socioeconomic status (CSES) and health in adulthood. In a new paper, I find this relationship varies across states, suggesting state context plays an important role in shaping health across the life course: tinyurl.com/bdactvkz

submitted 24 days ago • 3 comments

Can't say enough good things about this book. I recently co-wrote a primer on causal inference for anthropologists and this book addresses the exact tension we struggled with—how to grapple with exposures that are deemed not "manipulable" while incorporating the advances of modern causal inference.

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment