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Mark Hayward

@mdhayward.bsky.social
2.8K followers 2.1K following 371 posts

Population health scientist and demographer. Science thrives on honesty, honor,and commitment to others. Cat dad to two girls who are vying for the record of the longest lived cats.

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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 22h
Policy research is at its heart population health research. Understanding the health consequences of policy is central to NIH’s mission and complements clinical research. Leading researchers in health policy research make the case in Health Affairs Forefront: www.healthaffairs.org/content/fore... 🧪
healthaffairs.org
Health Affairs Journal
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Mateo Farina and I are excited to share a Perspective recently published in Milbank Quarterly. We argue that the "race between education and technology" plays an especially important role in the growing educational divide in US mortality. 🧪 @Milbank Memorial Fund www.milbank.org/quarterly/ar...
milbank.org
Public Policies in Historical Context and the Association Between Education and US Older Adults’ Health | Milbank Quarterly
In this perspective, we have reviewed the historical evidence on the association between education and health in the United States, arguing that attention to public policies related to both education ...
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Today, the vendor of a medical device ordered for me called FedEx to inquire why it wasn’t delivered. FedEx’s answer? They had too many packages. Isn’t package delivery what they’re supposed to do???
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Recent NIH grant terminations discussed in an article in the latest edition of Science. www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
NIH Director Bhattacharya kills more health disparities grants
Letter says agency is “adjusting its extramural research portfolio, which includes terminating grant awards”
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Trash panda family night on my front porch! Please party responsibly. 🤣🦝
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
No, this is not AI. It’s an actual CDC website. Our nation’s health is in serious jeopardy. www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safe...
cdc.gov
Autism and Vaccines
Answers to common questions about vaccine safety and autism.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
My front porch here in Austin, TX, seems like it’s on an animal trail. Here are some grey foxes (which can also climb trees!). In addition to the foxes we also have trash pandas by the dozens.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
For folks interested in the impact of the Trump administration on our nation’s scientific enterprise. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
nature.com
US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains
A series of graphics reveals how the Trump administration has sought historic cuts to science and the research workforce.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I am experiencing severe pain (9 level) because of pinched nerves in the spine. I was part of a team studying pain, but now I’m my own lab rat with my prior self as the control. All I can say is I’m impaired physically and cognitively. I may have enough data points to publish a few JAMA articles.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
@bsky.app At least one news outlet is reporting the slowdown in grant funding at NIH. What better way to attack science than starve its essential funding. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
White House stalls release of approved US science budgets
The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Congress has appropriated funds for the NIH budget, but Russell Vought, the head of OMB and co-Author of Project 2025 is only releasing funds to pay NIH staff. The money to fund new grants and continuing studies is not being released.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
The folks who still work at CDC, NIH and FDA are heroes. Everyday, they confront the madness of the administration while struggling to protect our nation’s health, quality science, and people’s lives. Someday, our nation will realize that we all owe them a debt of gratitude.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
The administration’s war on children won’t be a surprise to a lot of folks but here is a nice summary of the major attacks children are experiencing.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Some days-maybe most days-it feels like academia and science are being asphyxiated.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
I think it’s time to re-read Orwell’s 1984. Best to be prepared for the 2nd year of the Trump regime.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
There is increasing interest in whether vaccines have broader benefits for aging and health beyond their specific disease infection. Here's a recent study linking the shingles vaccine with biological aging, pointing to systemic benefits of a vaccine. academic.oup.com/biomedgeront...
academic.oup.com
Association between shingles vaccination and slower biological aging: Evidence from a U.S. population-based cohort study
Abstract. There is growing interest in whether adult vaccines such as shingles vaccine may slow biological aging beyond preventing acute infections. Using
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
I just wrote my first external tenure review letter for 2026. I don’t want any of my academic colleagues to assume that I will be equally available (or quick) in the months ahead. Just saying.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
As an IU alum (PhD 1980), I’m happily stunned by the Rose Bowl halftime score. I have too much respect for Bama to assume they won’t come back. But this is a once in a lifetime event. The program with almost the worst historical record up on a legendary successful program. I’ll relish this moment.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
I’m a demographer who studies US mortality. Looks like 2026 is shaping up to be a banner year, with vaccination rates crumbling and people foregoing health insurance because of rising costs. Why isn’t health an American value?
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Today was Pearl Harbor Day. Not a peep in the NYTs or Washington Post. It was a day that changed our country and the world. But now it’s invisible since history has become passe.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
I’m a Boomer who has watched the US come apart at the seams (eg, Vietnam), then lace itself together, only to come apart at the seams!(Watergate)…and it still continues. This dynamic is crazy making both domestically and internationally. But at least I have perspective LOL.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
My research team has published research showing that malnutrition and hunger in childhood are long-term risk factors for dementia decades later in life. Makes me think about the long-term health consequences of withholding SNAP benefits from families.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
I asked one set of kids who came to our door on Halloween if theyd already been at my house. They said yes they had…but their mom said it was OK to swing by a second time. Hmmm…some parents need parenting lessons.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
I never realized that Trump owned cattle ranches and soy bean farms in Argentina. Who would have guessed?
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
I gave a keynote at a conference & have been relaxing at the hotel bar. I struck up a conversation with a guy next to me. He asked what I do for a living and I hesitated. I’m a biodemographer and social epidemiologist. This led to an amazing conversation about our nation’s health.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
My lab group met today. Grad students and postdocs engaged in cutting edge research on health and aging topics. Every meeting it seems that they have a new article accepted or fascinating results. They’re provocative and fun! The next generation in this area of science. I love it!
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
I continue to be stunned at how poor health literacy is in the US. You’d think folks would have learned something during the worst of the pandemic. It almost seems the opposite. Perhaps the COVID “worm” ate people’s brains.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Today in my mortality grad seminar, we focused on what transpired in the US & comparisons with high income countries.The students were shocked by how devastating COVID was to US life expectancy compare to Europe. Then we discussed the Great Barringron Declaration. They were stunned.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
New evidence showing that educational attainment has a dose-response association with dementia risk throughout the entire distribution of education. 🧪 read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...
read.dukeupress.edu
How Does the Risk of Dementia Change With Each Additional Year of Education? | Demography | Duke University Press
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
If you think the far rights’ proposals to raise US birth rates will work, think again. www.newsweek.com/low-birth-ra...
newsweek.com
Low Birth Rates Are Here To Stay | Opinion
Individuals and families need to be supported by a strong social safety net that includes paid leave and a robust child care infrastructure. There are no quick fixes.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
I was thinking about 9/11 today as I was traipsing around airports. I was surprised by the lack of government attention and the media. 9/11 was a turning point in our history and had wide consequences, e.g., the War on Terror, the establishment of Homeland Security and wars in the Middle East. 1/2
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
#IAPHS I’m at a population health science conference in Pittsburgh. Researchers from many disciplines have gathered to talk about ways of improving health, bringing in “cells to society” perspectives. So wonderful at a time when HHS has declared war on the health sciences. Science will triumph.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
I’m traveling for biz. Staying at the Westin in Pittsburgh. I’m in the bar and just watched the bartender help out a street person fill their thermos with ice water. I love this place even more. Kindness. It still exists.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
My head spins when I see vaccine resistance—especially for children. Children’s lives in today’s world are at serious risk because of vaccine resistance. How do I know?Because of a real life counterfactual. Yeah, science
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
open.substack.com/pub/insideme... Some days I wonder whether Kennedy will start staffing CDC with witch doctors. Clearly, the germ theory of disease has been demoted within CDC.
open.substack.com
Breaking: RFK Jr. seeks to rush 7 new members to CDC vaccine panel.
We have breaking news that I believe we are first to report here in Inside Medicine.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
When the USSR was collapsing, they stopped publishing life tables because life expectancy was rapidly declining between 1974 and 1986. That’s one of the indicators the CIA used to gauge the level of internal rot in the USSR. Makes me wonder whether the US will continue publishing its life tables.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
I’d really prefer not to go to Mexico or Canada for my Covid booster. Just saying.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Years ago UT students protested the Texas Lege allowing guns on campus. The students started a passive protest, “Cocks for Glocks.” They attached dildoes to their backpacks, bicycles, whatever. The campus was flooded with sex toys to affirm how stupid our Lege was. 1/
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Education is now what defines social class in the United States. www.linkedin.com/posts/conrad...
linkedin.com
42% of Americans who get news from Fox News have ≤ a high school degree. No English language news source studied has higher audience share without any college education. https://lnkd.in/eHPpEF6s | Con...
42% of Americans who get news from Fox News have ≤ a high school degree. No English language news source studied has higher audience share without any college education. https://lnkd.in/eHPpEF6s
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
Summer in Austin is now 24 days longer than it was 30 years ago. A longer summer is the case just about everywhere in the US. Maybe that’s why the feds are closing down climate research and disappearing the data.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Here’s an example — among so many — of how the GOP kills great institutions — but is incapable of building them. www.texastribune.org/2025/08/21/u...
texastribune.org
UT System nixes faculty senates, approves restrictions on campus protests
The changes are in response to new state laws seeking to limit faculty’s influence and put guardrails on campus demonstrations.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
Nothing says grandparent love like waygu hot dogs, fancy ice cream sandwiches and pool time. Unless we had a pony. 🤣
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
My neighborhood has a group chat in WhatsApp. Today they are chatting away about housekeeping services, contact information for their housekeepers, cost, etc, blissfully unaware that they could be placing people at risk of "La Migra." Stupid, rich White people.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Another bad day for science. Kennedy cancelled nearly $600 million dollars in mRNA vaccine contracts, the best defense for fast-spreading diseases like COVID. He’s advocating using the traditional vaccine technology which is 100 years old. The threat to American lives is enormous.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
We have just published our outreach video about our dementia studies on the leading video science communication channel, SciTube. nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...
nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com
Professor Mark D. Hayward | How Education Shapes Dementia Risk - SciTube
Dementia – a syndrome characterized by declining cognitive function that interferes with daily living – represents one of the most significant health challenges facing aging populations worldwide. Whi...
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Existentialism is illustrated with the myth of Sisyphus. Pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll down-and the process begins anew.The modern version can be summarized using cats and cat barf. The cat barfs.Then we clean it up, and then the cat barfs again the next day. Modern existentialism.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
Travel hack #1. Always pack delicious homemade cookies in your carryon. I recommend oatmeal cocholate chip and peanut butter cookies. They both pair well with rum. Don’t ask me how I know. Scuba diving in Bonaire
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
I am numb and feel helpless. The tragedy in Kerrville has done me in. It has touched so many people. All I can think of are the missing, the grieving family, friends and the 1st responders. Thank god for HEB who has reached out to care for the survivors. I love my HEB. They’re the best of Texas.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
The new Medicaid work requirements need a motto. The words “Arbeit macht frei” strike a chord.
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Mark Hayward @mdhayward.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Remember when we had COVID dashboards that tracked how many Americans died? 1.1 million deaths. Maybe we should have GOP dashboards to track the deaths their policies cause. I’m betting that 1.1 million COVID deaths will only be a drop in the bucket compared to GOP deaths. Adios US life expectancy.
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