When Training Pipelines Break: What NIH F31 Terminations Mean for the Future of Public Health Research

National Institutes of Health (NIH) predoctoral fellowships, including the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (general F31 and F31-Diversity awards), have long served as mechanisms to support trainees, including those who are historically underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. In 2025, many of these awards were unjustly terminated. Since then, the status of many grants has changed among a funding landscape of partial reinstatements and continued uncertainty. In this article, we summarize historical evidence of the impact of NIH-predoctoral fellowships and explore the implications of these terminations on trainee well-being and public health more broadly. One illustrative case example of a termination (and subsequent reinstatement) of a diversity-promoting F31 grant highlights the multifaceted costs of these disruptions amid ongoing political and policy shifts.