AHRQ Is Being Dismantled and the Consequences Will Reach Every Part of American Health Care

The field has rallied to support AHRQ with letters to Congress and HHS, lawsuits, a GAO investigation, and more.

For decades, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has served as the federal home for health services research, funding and disseminating impactful studies that have helped improve health care delivery and patient safety across the country. Over the past year, AHRQ has experienced unprecedented devastation and unlawful impoundments that delay research funding and create uncertainty for the researchers, patients, providers, health systems, and policymakers that rely on this federal agency.

Last week, AHRQ announced the cancelation of nearly every grant that it had previously awarded, from training grants for the next generation of researchers to studies that sought to tackle hospital acquired infections, barriers to cancer screening, improving patient capacity, helping children with asthma get care, helping providers recognize child abuse, and so much more. We have been notified of nearly 80 canceled representing more than $200 million in taxpayer investments in improving American health care is being thrown away.

Since April 1, 2025, AHRQ has not issued a single new research grant, and ongoing projects have also ground to a halt. An estimated 80 percent of AHRQ’s staff is no longer at the Agency due to actions taken by the Trump administration, including the entirety of the staff overseeing the extramural grant program that reviews, issues awards, and manages federal investments, as well as nearly all staff supporting the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, dissemination and communication efforts, and intragovernmental experts. With the catastrophic loss of personnel, it is impossible for AHRQ to fulfill its mission in making health care more accessible, higher value, and affordable. When promising ideas remain unfunded or are disrupted part of the way through, the devastating effects ripple through the entire health care system.

AHRQ Funding Impoundment

Congress has authorized and appropriated funds for AHRQ to support research on health care quality, patient safety, and health care delivery. In FY 2025, AHRQ received $345 million in appropriated funds from Congress, yet policy decisions made by the administration meant that $80 million in appropriated dollars never reached researchers. Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the executive branch cannot simply refuse to spend the money that Congress has appropriated because they do not agree with it. If the executive branch wants to withhold funds, it must follow specific statutory procedures, including notifying and receiving approval from Congress.

Following operational and staffing changes in 2025, AHRQ has stopped issuing new and continuing grants. Since September 2025, AHRQ has released only $13 million in noncompetitive continuing grants, barely 5 percent of what Congress has appropriated for the current fiscal year. Last week, the Agency canceled nearly every grant that it had awarded, all but ensuring that it will be unable to invest nearly 90 percent of what Congress mandated. This is an illegal impoundment where appropriated funds are not obligated for the purpose authorized and funded by Congress. This blockage has effectively shut down AHRQ’s grantmaking operations, preventing the agency from carrying out its core responsibilities authorized by Congress in improving patient safety and care delivery.

The fight for AHRQ has also been taken to the courts, where the Society for General Internal Medicine has sued the Administration for the harms caused by the illegal impoundments in the FY25 funding year in the case SGIM v. Kennedy. This case is still being litigated at the motion stage, and AcademyHealth is grateful for SGIM’s leadership in taking this on.

The Dismantling of Scientific Independence

AHRQ plays a critical role in providing scientific and technical infrastructure that enables U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the nation’s independent advisory body on preventive medicine, to develop recommendations on preventive services. The USPSTF meets three times a year in March, July, and November; however, it has not convened since March 2025, delaying the development of preventive care recommendations that insurers, health systems, and clinicians rely on to guide patient care and coverage decisions.

On May 11, the USPSTF’s Chair John Wong and Vice Chair Esa Davis were fired from their positions without cause. The two sitting chairs are responsible for conducting independent reviews of nominations for new Task Force members, and the unprecedented firing of USPSTF’s leadership further undermines its ability to maintain scientific independence and fill eight of sixteen vacant seats with qualified and credible experts. The deadline for nomination of USPSTF members was May 23, 2026. The July meeting has been postponed until late August; however, a date has not been publicly set for that meeting.

Protecting Research Funding and Scientific Independence

The health services research community has not remained silent. AcademyHealth leads the Friends of AHRQ, a voluntary coalition of more than 650 organizations that support and advocate for AHRQ’s funding and grantmaking infrastructure. These organizations represent research facilities, patient advocates, nursing organizations, providers, hospitals, universities, think tanks, and more. The Friends of AHRQ actively engages with Congress through letters, briefings, and policy outreach to raise awareness of the devastating effects of the AHRQ impoundments on America’s ability to generate and implement life-saving and cost-effective health interventions. The Friends successfully won in the FY26 Labor-HHS appropriations law funding for an intact, independent, and functioning AHRQ with a full extramural research program, as well as the minimum staffing needed to meet their mission.

In the current FY27 appropriations negotiations, the Friends sent to Congress a letter calling for full funding of AHRQ and a return to sufficient staffing that was signed by over 260 organizations in a record smashing show of support from across the health care system for the work that AHRQ leads. In addition to testimony submitted to the House and Senate regarding AHRQ’s funding, AcademyHealth actively engages with bipartisan congressional offices to keep them inform on the status of the agency.

AcademyHealth also worked closely with Representatives Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Doris Matsui (D-CA) to request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) formally investigate if the impoundments were indeed unlawful. That investigation is ongoing, and we hope to see the results released at any time. Every month that appropriated funds remain unavailable is another month of lost research opportunities, layoffs of researchers, collapsing studies, and delays in scientific advancement.

Beyond leading efforts to restore funding for AHRQ, AcademyHealth has continued to champion the protection of the USPSTF. Following the sudden cancellations of USPSTF meetings in July 2025, AcademyHealth along with the Friends of AHRQ sent a letter urging Congress to protect the structure and scientific independence of the Task Force. As of today, no announcements have been made regarding who will fill the vacant positions in the Task Force, heightening the uncertainty of the future of USPSTF.

The substantial staffing cuts at AHRQ, the impoundment of funding, the removal of USPSTF leadership, and the cancellation of meetings are not isolated events. They reflect a broader pattern of actions that has dismantled the research infrastructure by collapsing the grantmaking function, delaying the development of preventive care recommendations, and undermining scientific independence. The coming months will be critical for determining the future of AHRQ. Ongoing litigations, the GAO investigation, and FY27 appropriations decisions will determine whether AHRQ can restore its grantmaking function and continue its mission of improving health care delivery, patient safety, and health care quality.

AcademyHealth will continue tracking these cancellations and documenting their impact. If your AHRQ funding has been affected, please reach out to us at advocacy@academyhealth.org.