Due to necessary scheduled maintenance, the JMIR Publications website will be unavailable from Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Who will be affected?
Readers: No access to all 28 journals. We recommend accessing our articles via PubMed Central
Authors: No access to the submission form or your user account.
Reviewers: No access to your user account. Please download manuscripts you are reviewing for offline reading before Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 7:00 PM.
Editors: No access to your user account to assign reviewers or make decisions.
Copyeditors: No access to user account. Please download manuscripts you are copyediting before Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 7:00 PM.
Federal Cuts and Public Health: Social Media Sentiment Among Federal Employees
Yi Wang;
Andrew N. Crenshaw;
Rodrigo Reis
ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the social media sentiment of federal employees amid significant federal cuts to public health funding and workforce reductions. Leveraging data from the Reddit forum r/FedNews, which serves as a platform for U.S. federal government workers, we analyzed 197,874 submissions between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2025. Our sentiment analysis, focusing on fear and anger, reveals a marked increase in these emotions among federal employees in 2025 compared to the period from 2021 to 2024. The average fear score rose by 32%, and the anger score surged by 63% in 2025, reflecting heightened anxiety and frustration due to job instability and reduced public health capacities. These findings underscore the adverse mental health impacts of policy changes on the federal workforce.
Citation
Please cite as:
Wang Y, Crenshaw AN, Reis R
Federal Cuts and Public Health: Social Media Sentiment Among Federal Employees