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Erin McCanlies spent almost two decades at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health studying how parents’ exposure to chemicals affects the chance that they will have a child with autism. This spring, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. eliminated her entire division.
Nate Smallwood for ProPublica
RFK Jr. Vowed To Find the Environmental Causes of Autism. Then He Shut Down Research Trying To Do Just That.
Aug 27, 2025
Erin McCanlies was listening to the radio one morning in April when she heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promising to find the cause of autism by September. The secretary of Health and Human Services said he believed an environmental toxin was responsible for the dramatic increase in the condition and vowed to gather “the most credible scientists from all over the world” to solve the mystery.
Nothing like that has ever been done before, he told an interviewer.
McCanlies was stunned. The work had been done.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been doing!” she said to her husband, Fred.
As an epidemiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which Kennedy oversees, McCanlies had spent much of the past two decades studying how parents’ exposure to workplace chemicals affects the chance that they will have a child with autism. Just three weeks earlier, she’d been finalizing her fourth major paper on the topic when Kennedy eliminated her entire division. Kennedy has also overseen tens of millions of dollars in cuts to federal funding for research on autism, including its environmental causes.
For 20 years, Kennedy has espoused the debunked theory that autism is caused by vaccines, dismissing evidence to the contrary by arguing that vaccine manufacturers, researchers and regulators all have an interest in obscuring their harms.
He remains skeptical of the scientists who have been funded by his own agency to study the neurodevelopmental condition. “We need to stop trusting the experts,” he told right-wing host Tucker Carlson in a June interview, going on to suggest that previous studies that found no relationship between vaccines and autism were marred by “trickery” and researchers’ self-interest.
In contrast, Kennedy told Carlson that under his leadership, and with a new, federally funded $50 million autism research initiative, “We’re going to get real studies done for the first time.”
Some autism researchers fear that the effort will manipulate data to blame the condition on vaccines. “Kennedy has never expressed an open mind, an open attitude towards what are the fundamental causes of autism,” said Helen Tager-Flusberg, a Boston University psychologist who founded a coalition of scientists concerned about his approach to autism. In a June statement, the group said the initiative lacks transparency and that Kennedy “casually ignores decades of high quality research that preceded his oversight.”
As Kennedy promotes his new initiative, ProPublica has found that he has also taken aim at the traditional scientific approach to autism, shutting down McCanlies’ lab and stripping funding from more than 50 autism-related studies. Meanwhile, he has stood by as the Trump administration encourages the departure of hundreds of federal employees with experience studying the harm caused by environmental threats and rolls back protections from pollution and chemicals, including some linked to autism.
Kennedy did not respond to requests for an interview, and an HHS spokesperson did not answer specific questions from ProPublica, including those related to the concerns of the coalition of autism scientists. “Under the leadership of Secretary Kennedy, HHS is taking action on autism as the public health emergency it is,” the spokesperson wrote. “NIH is fully committed to leaving no stone unturned in confronting this catastrophic epidemic — employing only gold-standard, evidence-based science. The Department will follow the science, wherever it leads.”
Genetic factors account for a significant portion of autism cases. Research like the kind McCanlies and other government-funded scientists have conducted over the past two decades has established that environmental factors have a role, too, and can combine with genetics. Multiple factors can even converge within the same individual. Some of those environmental risks could be reduced by the very measures the Trump administration is rolling back.
Kennedy would have been well positioned to advocate for researchers looking into the environmental causes of autism while sitting on President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
The nephew of President John F. Kennedy and son of his former attorney general, Bobby, Kennedy spent decades as an attorney battling some of the world’s most notorious corporate polluters. Once heralded by Time Magazine as one of the “heroes for the planet,” he railed against actions by the first Trump administration, complaining in his 2017 introduction to the book “Climate in Crisis” that 33 years’ worth of his work was “reduced to ruins as the president mounted his assault on science and environmental protection.”
But recently he has remained publicly silent as the Environmental Protection Agency halts research and weakens regulations on air pollution and chemicals, including some McCanlies and her colleagues have identified as possible factors in the development of autism.
“I don’t think he’s aware of my work,” McCanlies said, “or most of the literature that’s been published on what the causes of autism are.”
McCanlies was studying how a toxic chemical, beryllium, causes chronic lung inflammation in workers when she began to think seriously about autism.
It was 2005, and her college-age stepson had a job shadowing children with autism. As he described helping them navigate playground dynamics, reminding them to return a wave or a greeting, McCanlies wondered whether their behaviors might be tied to chemicals their parents had encountered on the job. Could the exposures have altered genes their parents passed down? Could they have infiltrated the kids’ developing brains through the womb or through breast milk?
The questions remained abstract until McCanlies met another researcher named Irva Hertz-Picciotto, who had a unique data set. She had collected detailed information on the occupations of two large groups of parents: those who had children with autism and those whose kids developed neurotypically. Comparing the groups’ chemical exposures before their children were born could help illuminate causes of the condition, McCanlies realized.
Hertz-Picciotto, an environmental epidemiologist based at the University of California, Davis, was a pioneer in the search for the causes of autism. In 2009, she published a much-cited paper highlighting a sevenfold increase in diagnoses in California. While others had asserted the rise was due to increased awareness and broadened diagnostic criteria, Hertz-Picciotto found those factors could only partially explain it. She and others went on to document additional contributors to autism risk, including parental age at the time of birth, a mother’s fever during pregnancy and more traditional environmental considerations, such as chemical exposures.
McCanlies hadn’t studied autism. But she offered Hertz-Picciotto her experience in genetics and epidemiology as well as the considerable resources of her agency. NIOSH was established in 1970 to investigate the dangers of the workplace, and its statisticians and industrial hygienists were among the world’s experts on the health impacts of chemical exposures.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Credit:Nate Smallwood for ProPublica
Their first collaboration, published in 2012, used Hertz-Picciotto’s data to see if parents of children with autism were more likely to have been exposed to chemicals already thought to be dangerous to the developing brain. The work was technical and time-consuming, but the analysis showed a clear relationship: Mothers and fathers of children with autism were more likely than the parents of unaffected children to have been exposed to solvents such as lacquer, varnish and xylene on the job. These solvents evaporate quickly and can be easily inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Chemical plant workers, painters, electricians, plumbers, construction workers, cleaners and medical personnel are among those who may be exposed to these solvents.
The sample size was small — just 174 families. But the results lined up with recent findings showing possible links between autism and exposure to metals and certain solvents during pregnancy or early childhood, including a solvent called methylene chloride. They also tracked with studies linking the chemicals to miscarriage, reproductive problems, birth defects and developmental problems other than autism.
McCanlies and Hertz-Picciotto followed up with a 2019 study that looked at more than 950 families. It showed that women exposed to solvents at work during pregnancy and the three months leading up to it were 1.5 times more likely to have a child with autism than women not exposed to the chemicals. (The study did not find a link for chemically exposed men.)
Their third study, published in 2023, took the link between solvent exposure and autism as a starting point. Using blood samples to examine the genetic makeup of the parents of children with autism, McCanlies and Hertz-Picciotto found that when exposed to solvents on the job, people with specific variants of 31 genes had an especially elevated risk of having a child with autism. Their genetic makeup appeared to increase the risk that solvents by themselves posed. Some of those 31 genes help cells connect with one another; others play a role in helping cells migrate to different areas so they can grow into the various parts of the brain; still others ensure that cells clear away toxic substances.
Researchers were also making strides under the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a division of Health and Human Services, which has financed investigations into dozens of environmental contaminants. Several have been linked to autism, including air pollution, certain pesticides, a plastic additive known as BPA and diesel exhaust, which causes “autism-like behavioral changes” in mice. In 2021, Hertz-Picciotto co-published a study linking “forever chemicals” called PFOA and PFNA with the condition. (In 2023, a second paper also found an association with PFNA.) Other government-funded research has established a link between autism and another solvent, trichloroethylene, also known as TCE, which has been used for dry cleaning, manufacturing and degreasing machines.
Together, the results have shown that many exposures can increase the likelihood of autism, and that there can be multiple causes for any one person.
At least one exposure can have the opposite effect: A study by a researcher named Rebecca Schmidt — and funded by the NIEHS and NIH — found that a B vitamin called folic acid was associated with a significant decrease in the chances of an autism diagnosis. More than a dozen studies have since confirmed the association.
One problem hung over much of autism research. The sweeping diagnosis includes everyone from people who treasure their neurological differences to those with debilitating symptoms, including repetitive behaviors, excruciating sensitivity to touch and sounds, and difficulty responding to social situations. McCanlies and Hertz–Picciotto wondered whether certain chemicals were linked to the most severe cases or to specific symptoms.
In 2023, they set about finding out.
They were preparing to submit their study for publication when newly inaugurated Trump put Kennedy in charge of America’s health.
Despite having made chronic health conditions the focus of his agenda, Kennedy has quietly abided environmental policies that will exacerbate these problems, including autism.
The Environmental Protection Agency, under Administrator Lee Zeldin, is rolling back rules and regulations that will result in an increase in air pollution, which multiple studies have linked to autism. The agency is in the process of reversing bans on several chemicals, including TCE, one of the solvents associated with the disorder, and has told a federal court it won’t legally defend certain aspects of a ban on methylene chloride, another of the solvents linked to autism. It also began dismantling its Office of Research and Development, which has funded research into the environmental conditions contributing to autism. According to an EPA spokesperson, more than 2,300 workers have so far elected to leave the agency through Trump administration programs encouraging early retirement and resignation.
The EPA also began canceling grants, including one it had given to Schmidt, the researcher who studied the protective effect of folic acid. Schmidt had been awarded $1.3 million to determine whether air pollution from wildfires might increase the risk of various neurological conditions. Schmidt and her colleagues had just done preliminary analysis and found that there was a significant association between wildfire pollution exposure and autism when she received a letter saying that the grant was terminated because the project was “no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.” After a judge ruled in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of University of California researchers alleging their funding was unlawfully terminated, her grant was reinstated last month. But the EPA has appealed the judge’s ruling, leaving Schmidt unsure about the fate of the project.
Schmidt said there is an urgent need to finish the study and warn people about how to avoid the dangers from wildfire smoke by staying indoors and using air filters and N95 masks. “Millions of pregnant women are getting exposed as we speak,” she said.
Meanwhile, Kennedy has presided over his own gutting of research. Known for sharing videos of his bare-chested workouts, he likened his agency’s cuts to getting rid of “unhealthy fat,” but his plan to reduce the staff of HHS by 20,000 amounts to slashing the workforce by roughly a quarter, including veteran scientists. Among the divisions Kennedy eliminated was one that studied air quality and collected data on chemicals found in human blood. Some workers in the division were subsequently reinstated. After a lawsuit and pressure from Congress, HHS has also rehired some NIOSH workers, though none at the division where McCanlies worked. Those whose jobs have not been reinstated remain on administrative leave.
People participated in a candlelight vigil (first image) in front of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (second image) announced cuts to HHS this year. Credit:First image: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images. Second image: Samuel Corum/Getty Images.
The reorganization plan for HHS involves consolidating the remnants of these parts of the agency, along with several others, into a new division called the Administration for a Healthy America. Asked about the transition, an HHS spokesperson told ProPublica in an email that the reorganization would save taxpayers $1.8 billion a year and that “critical programs will continue.”
Meanwhile, a ProPublica review of federal data found that more than $40 million in grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health for dozens of autism-related research projects were canceled under Kennedy’s watch. Some had been awarded to universities the administration is now targeting, while others ran afoul of Trump’s “anti-woke” priorities by mentioning gender and other verboten terms. Among them was a grant to Harvard University to use data on nearly half a million Israeli children to evaluate whether men’s exposure to air pollution affects the risk of having a child with autism. (A small number of grants have been recently reinstated.) A survey of researchers conducted by the Autism Science Foundation, which tallied cuts to training grants and the anticipated cuts to future grants over the next few years, estimated that the total loss of funding could be tens of millions more.
“We’re talking about probably decades of delays and setbacks,” said Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation. “To take money away from all these areas of need to focus on a question that the HHS director considers high priority seems not scientific and not the way that science is done.”
Housed under the National Institutes of Health, Kennedy’s new $50-million Autism Data Science Initiative is looking to fund two- to three-year research projects that plumb large public and private datasets to find “possible contributors to the causes of autism” as well as conduct research on existing treatments.
With the deadline for his promised discovery fast approaching, Kennedy recently acknowledged that his initial six-month timeline was overly optimistic. He told Carlson he should have “some initial indicator answers” about the causes of autism by September, his original deadline, and promised unqualified answers within another six months.
While the NIH typically releases the names of the scientists on the committees that review grant applications and the criteria they use to review them, it has not done so in this case. Nor has the agency clarified what role NIH staff will have in awarding the grants, who will make the final selection, or what terms and conditions researchers must agree to if they receive funds. HHS did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about who will make the final grant selection and why the agency has not yet made this information public, but a video NIH created for applicants of the funding acknowledges that reviews of the proposals “do not follow the traditional NIH review process.” According to the video, the process was “designed to ensure integrity, fairness and transparency.”
Hertz-Picciotto, who laments the fact that Kennedy is “shutting down good studies,” is among the researchers in her field who have decided to apply for the funding. “Some of his agenda is really ridiculous and very counterproductive,” she said. “But if something good can be done with this money, I’d like to be part of that.”
If her project is approved, she plans to hire McCanlies to consult on it.
McCanlies said she agreed to work on the project because she has complete confidence in her longtime colleague, if not the health secretary. “I don’t trust him at all,” she said.
McCanlies in her home office in Morgantown, West Virginia Credit:Nate Smallwood for ProPublica
McCanlies had never paid much attention to Kennedy — or to politics. Throughout the seven presidential administrations that governed while she had been at NIOSH, her work had been utterly uncontroversial. But weeks after his confirmation, she knew her job was in peril. She had deleted the first email she received from Trump’s Office of Personnel Management. The tone was so strange and disrespectful, hinting that she might be punished if she didn’t respond by confirming her email address, that she assumed it was a phishing attempt. By the time she received a second, suggesting that she find a “higher productivity” job in the private sector, firings and budget cuts were rolling across federal agencies.
The 58-year-old, who has short, greying hair, hazel eyes and three graduate degrees, hadn’t been ready to leave NIOSH’s Health Effects Lab in Morgantown, West Virginia, a place where she had mentored young colleagues, taught a lunchtime meditation class and helped conduct several yearslong research projects. The lab is also where she met Fred, her husband, another Ph.D. scientist who studied workplace chemical hazards. She reluctantly put in for early retirement just days before the entire lab was dissolved.
McCanlies spent her final days at NIOSH finishing her last paper, which explores the association between workplace chemicals and the severity of autism. Normally, she would have her supervisor sign off on her submission to a journal, but he had already lost his job. The rest of her colleagues were gone, too, and the lab’s hallways were empty as she gave the manuscript a final edit.
She felt proud of the study, which answered some of the questions she and Hertz-Picciotto had posed years ago. There were indeed links between exposures and the severity of autism. Parents’ exposure to plastics was “consistently and significantly associated” with lower cognitive scores in their children who had autism, increases in “aberrant behaviors” and deficits in basic life skills, the study found. The exposure was also linked to particular symptoms of autism, including social withdrawal, hyperactivity and repetitive behaviors such as hand flapping and body rocking. Higher autism severity scores and weaker daily living skills were also linked with ethylene oxide. Last year, the EPA imposed stricter limits on the chemical, which is used as a sterilizer. But the agency is now reconsidering those restrictions, and, in July, Trump exempted some of the biggest polluters from them.
The paper, which is now available as a preprint, recommended that regulatory agencies “consider increasing awareness of these hazards and make clear recommendations for implementing protective measures at the worksite.”
Having just watched so many occupational health experts forced to leave their jobs, McCanlies suspected their advice was unlikely to be heeded anytime soon.
Sharon Lerner covers health and the environment and the agencies that govern them, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
RFK Jr. Vowed To Find the Environmental Causes of Autism. Then He Shut Down Research Trying To Do Just That. was originally published by ProPublica and is republished with permission.
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U.S. President Donald Trump visits the U.S. Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility on August 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker
Trump’s Imperial Presidency: Putting Local Democracy at Risk
Aug 26, 2025
Trump says his deployment of federal law enforcement is about restoring order in Washington, D.C. But the real message isn’t about crime—it’s about power. By federalizing the District’s police, activating the National Guard, and bulldozing homeless encampments with just a day’s notice, Trump is flexing a new kind of presidential muscle: the authority to override local governments at will—a move that raises serious constitutional concerns.
And now, he promises that D.C. won’t be the last. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia—cities he derides as “crime-ridden”—could be next. Noticeably absent from his list are red-state cities with higher homicide rates, like New Orleans. The pattern is clear: Trump’s law-and-order agenda is less about public safety and more about partisan punishment.
In effect, it represents a dramatic inversion of federalism and reshapes the balance of power. For over two centuries, local control over policing and public safety has been a core principle of American governance, respected by presidents of both parties. Ronald Reagan refrained from intervening in New York’s crime crisis, preferring to let state and city officials address it. Barack Obama left local officials in charge during Ferguson’s unrest in 2014. To find parallels to Trump’s approach, one must look abroad—to authoritarian leaders like Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, or Vladimir Putin in Russia—where centralized crackdowns on cities are a common tactic of strongman rule.
Selective Enforcement and Political Targets
Trump’s crackdown reveals a selective pattern. Crime statistics show that some of the cities he names are not the nation’s most violent. Washington ranked fourth in homicide rates last year, while Chicago and New York were far lower. Meanwhile, St. Louis and New Orleans—both with higher homicide rates—escaped his attention. The common thread isn’t safety but partisanship: he singles out Democratic strongholds while sparing cities in red states. In doing so, Trump reframes public safety as a partisan test of loyalty rather than a matter of governance.
This is troubling because public safety has long been a shared responsibility, with local governments closest to their communities making the key decisions. By federalizing this function selectively, Trump shifts the emphasis from community safety to political punishment. Ordinary residents—people concerned about schools, housing, and neighborhood policing—become pawns in a national feud rather than citizens whose well-being is the priority.
If presidents can target opponents’ cities while ignoring allies’ failures, federalism becomes less about constitutional balance and more about partisan advantage. Even if future presidents avoid this path, the precedent itself erodes constraints on the office. Over time, that erosion can normalize the idea that cities are bargaining chips in presidential politics. Communities become pieces in a national political game, and their residents become collateral in a struggle for executive dominance.
Congress and the Erosion of Checks
Many of the same GOP voices now cheering Trump’s federalization moves once denounced far smaller assertions of executive power by Democratic presidents. Republicans railed against Barack Obama’s use of executive actions on immigration policy, such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). They also criticized Joe Biden’s attempts at student debt relief as unconstitutional overreach. The contrast underscores how partisan convenience often dictates whether lawmakers view presidential assertiveness as tyranny or necessary leadership.
What makes this shift especially dangerous is Congress’s silence. GOP lawmakers have cheered Trump’s actions as necessary to “restore order,” while Democrats have offered little resistance. By doing so, they weaken their own institution and normalize executive overreach into local functions that the Constitution never intended the presidency to control. Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise both praised the federalization of D.C.’s police, while Democratic opposition remained muted and fragmented.
This problem is compounded by selective enforcement. When presidents push boundaries and Congress fails to respond, temporary excesses risk becoming permanent norms. Each time Congress defers, it cedes more ground to the White House, setting a precedent that future presidents of either party can exploit. When lawmakers abandon their constitutional duty to check the executive, the balance of power tilts further toward an overmighty presidency, leaving local democracy exposed.
Consequences for Citizens and Cities
For citizens, the implications are not abstract. When federal authority displaces local control, it is ordinary residents who feel the disruption most directly. In Washington, the clearing of homeless encampments with only a day’s notice left vulnerable people scrambling for shelter and services. In cities like New York or Chicago, a federal takeover could mean policies imposed by distant officials who lack an understanding of neighborhood realities. Public safety decisions risk turning into political theater instead of policies grounded in community needs. The result is a hollowing out of local democracy, where residents lose both voice and agency in the issues closest to home.
This shift also corrodes trust. Past examples show how blurred accountability undermines confidence. During Hurricane Katrina, disputes between federal, state, and local authorities left residents uncertain who was responsible for failures in relief efforts. More recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicting state and federal directives left citizens confused about who was in charge of testing, lockdowns, and vaccine rollouts. Citizens expect local leaders—mayors, city councils, police chiefs—to be accountable for safety and services. If those responsibilities are usurped by the White House, accountability blurs. Communities may feel they have no recourse when policies are heavy-handed or ineffective, deepening cynicism about government at every level.
Conclusion: Restoring the Balance
The danger in Trump’s actions is not just what he has done in Washington but the precedent they set for the presidency itself. Once federal takeovers of local functions are normalized, the constitutional safeguards meant to protect citizens from centralized power become weaker, no matter who occupies the White House. Local democracy erodes not in a single stroke but in the steady expansion of executive authority into spaces where it does not belong.
If American democracy is to remain resilient, Congress must reassert its constitutional role. Citizens must also demand accountability. They cannot remain passive when presidents overstep. Lawmakers could start by reining in the use of executive orders, strengthening limits on emergency declarations, and clarifying boundaries for federal involvement in local policing. Courts and state governments can also reinforce limits on federal intrusion. The alternative is a presidency where cities are pawns, communities are silenced, and local self-government—the very foundation of federalism—is reduced to a relic of the past.
Robert Cropf is a professor of political science at Saint Louis University.Keep ReadingShow less
In cities from Chicago, IL, to Jackson, MS, The Change Collective is growing a new generation of local leaders to combat civic disengagement at the local level.
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The Change Collective Trains Young Leaders To Rebuild Civic Engagement Across U.S. Cities
Aug 26, 2025
In cities from Chicago, IL, to Jackson, MS, The Change Collective is growing a new generation of local leaders to combat civic disengagement at the local level.
The Change Collective, launched in 2023, is a nonpartisan organization connecting and training young leaders through a fellowship program in five cities across the country by countering rising political polarization and declining civic engagement. Executive Director of the Change Collective Dexter Mason said the biggest challenge facing civic engagement is the level of social isolation and polarization within the country.
“While no one effort is going to fix these issues, we believe that investing in the next generation of changemakers at the local level is an essential part of the solution,” Mason said.
Mason said that for The Change Collective, civic engagement means “so much more” than paying attention to what is done at the national level but also what is happening with their neighbors, peers, and fellow community members.
“At the Change Collective, we believe local leaders are the key to countering these low levels of civic engagement and building stronger communities,” Mason said.
Mason said The Change Collective’s fellowship program is six months long and contains the local cohort representing a range of identities, backgrounds, vocations, and ideologies. He added that the fellows receive a series of training on how to engage and organize members of their community, public officials, and institutions.
“Our goal is to reinvent civic life for the 21st century and cultivate the next generation of local leaders working to increase civic collaboration and engagement in their communities,” Mason said.
Within their fellowship program, Mason also said that within the five cities they serve, there are more than 130 community partners, including the Chicago Latino Caucus Foundation, the Detroit Pistons, the Michigan Black Business Alliance, MS Votes, and the Terry Scholars at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The culmination of the program, Mason said, is the fellows creating a Civic Action Plan based on the state they are from. Mason pointed out a few examples of fellows’ work from across the country.
In Chicago, fellow Juan Solis launched a summer program in financial literacy to help students, 12 to 15 years old, learn financial independence. Over in Detroit, fellow Bandhan Kaur created computer science classes in Highland Park, a city near Detroit, to help close the gap between the age and gender divide in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.
Down south in San Antonio, fellow Lina Rugova launched a digital literacy program through Emerge and Rise Inc., an organization providing business development through social innovation and environmental sustainability. The goal is to address the digital gap in small business owners in using technology.
Eastward in Jackson, MS, fellow Charity Bruce created a program to provide free expungement services—or a legal process allowing for the removal or sealing of criminal records—for young adults, and to then connect them with companies that can interview and hire them.
Finally, Amber Sherman, in Memphis, TN, created an ordinance to increase accessibility and participation within Memphis City Council Meetings. Mason said the ordinance was passed with the sponsorship of three current city council members.
Mason said that in 2024, the program measured success by sustained impact. He added that The Change Collective has trained more than 100 leaders across its five hubs, with 96 percent contributing to a Civic Action Plan.
“We draw our inspiration from the dedication and passion of our participants — they join us with an infectious and undeniable energy to create change and bridge divides,” Mason said. “Seeing our Fellows and alumni continuously change their communities and connect with one another motivates us each day on our mission to empower local leaders.”
Maggie Rhoads was a cohort member in Common Ground USA's Journalism program, where Hugo Balta served as an instructor. Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum, and the publisher of the Latino News Network.
The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. Learn more by clicking HERE.
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Bosnian Immigrants Battle Mental Health, but Keep Growing Anyway
Aug 26, 2025
Note: Admir is a pseudonym used to protect the individual's identity. He requested anonymity due to the personal nature of his experiences and the stigma surrounding mental health in his culture and community.
For nearly eight years, Admir spent most of his life in motion – behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler, miles away from home, navigating this country’s interstates and his own mental strain. Trucking was a practical choice: it paid for college and helped support his family.
But over time, the four walls of his truck became a kind of moving prison.
“It’s a six-by-six box you are encased in without relief,” he recalled. “I would scream, cry, yell, and often sit in silence even around people because of what the job did to my psyche.”
Loneliness on the road was only one part of the burden.
As a Bosnian immigrant in St. Louis, Admir faced a culture where mental health is rarely discussed, especially among its men. Generational trauma from the 1990s war, including loss and displacement, still shapes many families, contributing to silence around these issues.
This silence stems partly from generational trauma. Many Bosnian families carry the psychological scars of war, displacement, and loss: pain passed down from the 1990s conflict that uprooted thousands.
Psychotherapist Davorka Marovic-Johnson, who works closely with clients from former Yugoslavia, says this inherited trauma often goes unaddressed.
“This trauma kind of sits. There are so many people now who are still in survival mode,” she explained. “[But] the body keeps score.”
Admir says that war trauma, compounded by years of isolation on the road, still shapes how he thinks, feels, and interacts with others. He struggles with emotional fatigue, disconnection, and sleepless nights.
For many men, resilience means silence, a mindset that still hinders open conversations about mental health.
Marovic-Johnson sees the effects of this firsthand. She warns that repeatedly sharing war stories and discouraging hard conversations without healing strategies will deepen the pain.
Admir is far from alone.
Long hours, isolation, and constant pressure affect many truck drivers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28% report loneliness, 27% depression, and 21% anxiety: conditions that can impair well-being, driving performance, and safety.
Truck driving is also a common path for Bosnian immigrants in St. Louis, seen as both steady work and a symbol of sacrifice. Nationally, immigrants make up nearly 19% of truck drivers, with the number of foreign-born drivers more than doubling from 2000 to 2021.
But cultural expectations to “push through” and remain strong often hide the true psychological cost of the job.
Public perception and treatment of these essential workers across the nation add to the burden.
“The stigma the general public has toward the profession and truck drivers as inbred, dull-witted, and obtuse in nature is a hard pill to swallow when administered on a daily basis for years at time,” Admir said. “The lack of meaningful and purposeful conversations amongst drivers due to schedule and various demands of work load left me feeling dreadfully alone.”
Marovic-Johnson puts it plainly: Isolation kills.
“You have to find a way to connect, whether it be spiritually, through community, or something else, because isolation isn’t healthy,” she said. “We are biologically wired for connection.”
Admir knows that loneliness intimately. He recalls his breaking point during a grueling 16-day driving stretch that ended in Dayton, Ohio.
“I broke mentally and screamed at myself in lunacy and anger for being in a position of lessened existence,” he said.
But even in debilitating moments like this, help felt out of reach.
The former truck driver says that while companies technically offered mental health services, they went largely unused by drivers.
“Using them often meant less work, less pay, or even dismissal because of insurance costs,” he said. “So most drivers, regardless of background, avoided them altogether.”
Marovic-Johnson notes that many of her clients from former Yugoslavia often seek her help mainly to qualify for disability benefits, rather than to openly address the mental health struggles that have long affected their lives.
However, she emphasizes her efforts to plant seeds of healthy coping mechanisms and strategies within those she helps.
“I feel that we have to do our part. Keep educating people,” she said. “We all have a responsibility to work on our healing, otherwise we are passing on all the trauma and unhealthy beliefs and patterns to the next generation.”
Despite the cultural stigma around mental health and the lingering effects of war-related trauma, Bosnians in St. Louis have carved out a remarkable path to success. It’s a journey that began the moment they arrived on American soil.
And with immigrants facing growing political pressure and the looming threat of mass deportations across the country, this community in St. Louis is still choosing to embody resilience.
“With Bosnians, there is lots of trauma. Those who survived are extremely resilient, very hard working, people have a lot of respect for Bosnians because they take care of their communities,” Marovic-Johnson said.
The revival of South St. Louis came in the wake of tragedy.
Between 1992 and 1995, the ethnically-rooted Bosnian War claimed over 100,000 lives and displaced millions. Thousands of those refugees resettled in St. Louis, drawn by the support of organizations like the International Institute and Catholic Charities USA, which helped them learn English, secure housing, and find jobs. Many settled in the Bevo Mill neighborhood to stay close to these services and each other.
Their influence is subtle but deeply woven into the city’s fabric.
Today, St. Louis is home to the largest Bosnian population in the U.S., a community that helped revitalize parts of the city. In Bevo Mill, now often called “Little Bosnia,” Bosnian-owned businesses like butcher shops, cafes, auto repair shops, and trucking companies flourished. Many built stability through hard work, especially in trades like construction and driving.
“Immigrants themselves are disproportionately entrepreneurial,” said Blake Hamilton, president and CEO of the International Institute of St. Louis. “That makes sense because immigration is an entrepreneurial act. It’s taking a chance that tomorrow will be better than today.”
He added that immigrants don’t just generate value through the businesses they build, but also through the web of services they support. He notes that many in the area are up for the job, whether it be filling occupations that are chronically open and starved for workers or starting small businesses from the ground up.
“There's this sort of flow that that exists that was really created by this group of folks who were fleeing safety from genocide,” Hamilton said. “We're able to open our hearts and our city to them and the prosperity that they've found for themselves and their families is something that the region still benefits from.”
That prosperity, however, doesn’t erase the quieter struggles that continue to linger beneath the surface.
Both Admir and Marovic-Johnson recognize the importance of having conversations about mental health throughout the community, no matter how small.
The psychotherapist urges the community to practice patience and kindness towards others whenever possible. She also stresses the need for creative approaches to mental health education.
“[I have faith in the] younger generation to really help actually start having conversations and educating our community,” Marovic-Johnson said. “Support groups are really needed, especially for older people who are isolated. I mean, that's (isolation) a killer.”
Admir knows that healing requires breaking the silence. He is no longer driving long-haul routes, but the echoes of that time – and the war before it – still linger.
For him, healing begins with small, intentional steps.
“Seek help. Talk openly about it. Start something as simple as a book club, and make regular discussions part of the routine,” he said. “It’s in these conversations that we start to undo the silence.”
Layla Halilbasic is an incoming junior at Webster University in St. Louis and a cohort member with the Fulcrum Fellowship.
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