Background: In late January 2025, the leadership of the newly-elected federal government instituted policies and initiatives that resulted in one-third of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) being terminated, retiring, or resigning. CDC cycled through permanent and acting leaders and long-standing scientific and agency operations underwent disruptive changes. We characterized the mental health of CDC workers, who have experienced rapid and continuous changes to their work environment since then.

Methods: In late February 2026, we distributed an anonymous survey to current and former CDC workers through formal and informal professional networks. We asked about self-reported mental health, anxiety, and depression. Study recruitment is ongoing; we present preliminary descriptive results from participants enrolled to date.

Results: We included 446 participants in our preliminary analysis, of whom 70% were still working at CDC and 30% were terminated or left CDC after January 20, 2025. Over half (54%) described their current mental health as fair or poor. Among the 54% of participants who had ever been diagnosed with anxiety, 99% said that changes at CDC made their anxiety worse; 72% either started medications or increased their medication dosage in response. Among the 41% who had ever been diagnosed with depression, 97% said these changes made their depression worse; 65% started medication or increased their dosage. Overall, 38% of participants knew of a CDC worker who attempted to harm themselves or thought about harming themselves due to the changes at CDC.

Conclusions: Our preliminary results indicate that the changes at CDC have negatively affected the mental health of CDC workers. Although those who responded to our survey may be more likely to have been affected than non-responders, these high levels of worsening mental health indicate the potential need for a more stable work environment to improve workforce mental health.