WASHINGTON – Following is a statement by Sandra L. Shullman, PhD, president of the American Psychological Association, regarding the administration’s order that hospitals bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and report coronavirus data to a central database in Washington:
“Accurate, complete and timely data collection is essential to our nation’s ability to slow and ultimately stop the spread of COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is our country’s foremost authority on tracking disease and should not be cut out of the process. This decision to remove the CDC from its primary function and opt toward creating a duplicative, private federal contractor will halt the flow of crucial information. In recent weeks, state reporting had been improving with greater federal support. Now is not the time to change established processes that put this critical information into the hands of the nations’ premier public health experts. COVID-19 data collection efforts must not be politicized and vital data pertaining to race and ethnicity must continue to be publicly reported.”
APA sent a letter to the White House (PDF, 149KB)opens in new window in April, asking that the federal government launch a public-private partnership within the CDC to coordinate with state and local public health authorities to collect, disaggregate, and report on data related to COVID-19 to more effectively address the pandemic and help identify and reduce the racial and ethnic disparities in infection rates.