How does leaving the World Health Organization (WHO) impact the United States Healthcare System?

 by Liya Moges

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the United States (U.S.) has completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) as of January 22, 2026. The decision to leave the WHO was due to a variety of reasons, the biggest being its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Now that the withdrawal from the WHO has been completed, many are left wondering what exactly will change from this point on in healthcare, public health, and epidemiology. This article will break down what this decision could mean for our country and explain its positive and negative implications.

Positive Implications from leaving WHO:

 ● The U.S. will not have greater national autonomy, meaning it would retain full control over its public health priorities, funding allocation, and response strategies without having to align with WHO guidelines or consensus-based recommendations.

● Funds previously contributed to the WHO can now be redirected to more domestic U.S. public health programs and to U.S. research institutes such as the NIH or the CDC. Reduced decision-making constraints is another benefit the U.S. can gain from leaving the WHO, since decisions made by the WHO can be slow due to the multinational coordination required among countries. Leaving can actually enable a faster, straight-arrow approach to decision-making during health emergencies in the U.S.

● Lawmakers can prioritize domestic health needs such as chronic disease burdens, health equity, and healthcare access, rather than focusing on global health issues that may not feel as pertinent to our current domestic population.

● Lastly, the U.S can engage more in global health strategies independently through direct partnerships or regional collaborations instead of operating through one centralized international body. This can go hand in hand with the benefit of reduced bureaucratic red tape mentioned earlier and can help strengthen U.S. relations with other countries independently.

Negative Implications from leaving WHO:

 ● Leaving the WHO can reduce the U.S.’ access to global disease surveillance data. This is important because the WHO plays a large role in coordinating international disease monitoring and early warning systems. Without this, it can limit real-time access to global outbreak data and increase our vulnerability to emerging infectious diseases as a country.

● Reduced collaboration with the WHO can also potentially impact U.S. research and

Innovation. This goes in tandem with the above point because the WHO has always collaborated with U.S academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and research centers to help with data-sharing, clinical trial updates, and vaccine and medication development.

● The US may face challenges when preparing for pandemics and outbreaks. This is because, without WHO coordination, the U.S. may face challenges properly aligning travel advisories, vaccine strategies, and containment measures with other nations, without the connection to the guidelines and restrictions set by the collective.

● Withdrawing from the WHO can lead to a loss of influence in the U.S., a strongholder of global health policy. In turn, it can create a domino effect, reducing our diplomatic and scientific influence on future global health decisions.

● Furthermore, withdrawal from the WHO can fragment U.S. health responses, leading to inconsistent standards, duplicated work, and inefficiencies that can ultimately affect the U.S. healthcare system and how it is delivered during global health emergencies.

The potential positive and negative implications I discussed are merely food for thought. The withdrawal of U.S. involvement from the WHO does not directly change how healthcare will be delivered on a day-to-day basis within hospital or clinic walls; it does, however, affect upstream systems involving disease surveillance, pandemic/epidemic readiness, research collaboration and development, and global health stability.

Many of the long-term effects will unfold over time rather than all at once, and will depend on how federal agencies, global partners, and lawmakers adjust to this new framework for public health coordination. From this point on, many in the U.S. can expect future news to focus on how disease monitoring systems are maintained, how collaborations are evolving globally, and how the U.S. will position itself during future global health events. This transition represents a structural shift whose true impact will become clearer over time as new policies, partnerships, and public health strategies take shape. Only then will it be possible to assess whether the decision to withdraw from the WHO ultimately strengthened or complicated the nation’s public health framework.