Since January 2025, the U.S. government has imposed a dizzying array of changes to science and healthcare agencies and policies, with potentially major repercussions for Canadian researchers, health care professionals, and their patients. In response, health librarians from U of T and across Canada collaborated to deliver a vital new resource designed to help Canadian researchers, healthcare professionals, and the public monitor and understand the cross-border impacts of U.S. policy decisions on science funding, research collaboration, and public health.

Beyond Borders: Impacts of U.S. Administration decisions on Canadian Healthcare was created by volunteers from the Health Science Information Consortium, the University of Toronto Libraries and a number of health librarians from across Canada.

Organized into several categories, the guide has been shaped by policies enacted by the U.S. administration that have led to mass firings of scientists, significant cuts to research funding, censorship of health data, and withdrawal from international scientific collaborations. These actions have already begun to reverberate across Canada’s research institutions and healthcare systems.

“(The NIH and CDC) have always been valued sources of information,” says Lori Anne Oja, executive director of the Health Science Information Consortium. “Their mandates are changing in a way that has created concerns globally. These changes affect research, data and most importantly public trust. As librarians with particular skills in research and critical appraisal, we felt it important to respond to these challenges and support our healthcare community by developing this guide. “

The guide offers:

Tracking of U.S. policy changes with Canadian relevance
Uncovering censorship in research and its implications
Information for health practitioners on how these changes may affect healthcare access and outcomes
Tools for researchers to navigate threats to scholarly publishing, funding shifts and data preservation

As one example, the guide has a section outlining clinical trial process changes in the U.S., which includes funding cuts to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and the end of the NiH’s scientific integrity policy. For Canadian clinical trials, these changes could lead to a potential loss of inclusive data sampling, while U.S. evidence used for Canadian clinical trials may also lose credibility.

The guide recommends that Canadian researchers respond to these threats by upholding inclusive protocols in their work, and analyze U.S. data and trial policies more closely for bias. It also points to existing protections, including Canada’s Model Policy on Scientific Integrity, which supports evidence-informed policy making without political interference.

During periods of political uncertainty, where once-trusted sources of information are under threat, the role of libraries is more vital than ever. Through guides like Beyond Borders, librarians are responding to the increasing challenges to the quality of medical and scholarly information, helping researchers and clinicians navigate bias and misinformation that have implications for their work.

"Designed and maintained by librarians, the Beyond Borders guide is a valuable resource for healthcare clinicians, educators, researchers, and policymakers navigating the increasingly complex relationship between U.S. policy and Canadian healthcare,” says Stephen Wellington, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia and a pediatrician at Queen Alexandra Centre for Children's Health. “By collecting the latest U.S. policy updates and analyzing their implications, the guide aims to cut through misinformation and highlight the areas with the greatest potential impact on Canada’s healthcare system; ranging from the macroscopic level of population health to the health information used in individual patient care."

Beyond Borders: Impacts of U.S. Administration decisions on Canadian Healthcare is online and available now.

Taking information literacy Beyond Borders