The recently released Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) report has drawn attention with its sweeping narrative on the childhood chronic disease crisis. In a new insight, Director of Health Care Policy Michael Baker compares the report’s causal claims to peer-reviewed evidence and long-standing scientific surveillance.

Key Points:

• The MAHA report identifies some root causes of chronic disease in children; its resultant declarative statements often exceed scientific consensus, however, suggesting a comparative review is warranted.
• As outlined in the report, the United States has seen an increase in chronic disease over the past 40 years; more than 40 percent of U.S. school-aged children live with at least one chronic health condition, while broader analyses suggest the share of youth with a long-term limitation has climbed to nearly 30 percent over the past two decades.
• Causal relationships remain difficult to substantiate; however, there is evidence to suggest that key claims by the MAHA assessment are accepted in some form by the larger scientific community.

Read the analysis.