From the Guest Editor

For many in public health, every day feels like swimming upstream.Today, negative views of public health are in many ways even more pronounced and institutionalized than they were at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.The primary federal agency responsible for assessing and responding to public health threats, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been without a confirmed leader for more than eight months and the agency has lost between one-quarter and one-third of its staff.In January of 2026, the U.S. officially withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO).A cluster of cases of a rare, and often fatal, respiratory condition known as hantavirus was discovered on board a small cruise ship and the coordinated global response is happening without the U.S.