The early cancelation of federal grants for sexual health education has raised protests from King County officials.
Public Health Seattle & King County was supposed to receive $5 million over five years. But earlier this summer, the Trump administration said the program would end after three years.
The public health department is in year three of a five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The $5 million pays for sexual health education curriculum, teacher training, and efforts to reduce teen pregnancy. It also funds research into how well the curriculum is working.
“One key principle for our work in public health is that we act based on science and evidence,” said Patty Hayes, director of public health in King County. “We need the evidence that a new system or rule or intervention is necessary – and that it’s effective.”
Hayes says they’re in the process of collecting that data by studying how the curriculum developed in King County affects 4,000 students in the South and Midwest.
But now the money will run out in June 2018 – two years earlier than expected. The change came in a notice from the federal health department back in early July. Public health officials said there was no explanation.
King County and other urban public health agencies have filed a formal protest with the Trump administration. They’re organized by the Big Cities Health Coalition, which calls the early termination of the grant “highly disruptive to work already underway.”
