An Open Letter to Mayor Zohran Mamdani
16 December 2025 (when he was Mayor-Elect)
Mayor-elect Mamdani,
Congratulations on your historic election and on the bold, affordability-focused platform that brought so many New Yorkers back into the democratic process. Your commitments to ensuring that every New Yorker can live with dignity—through policies such as fare-free buses, city-owned grocery stores, universal childcare, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized housing, expanded affordable housing, and a Department of Community Safety—are, at their core, public health policies. Affordability keeps people here. Health helps them thrive. With a few targeted shifts, your incoming administration can ensure that its ambitious affordability agenda also becomes a powerful force for addressing the social and structural conditions that shape New Yorkers’ lives.
We know City Hall cannot solve every problem alone. But we also know that bold municipal leadership can transform the trajectories of families, neighborhoods, and entire generations—especially at a time when science, public health, and public trust are under attack nationally. In that spirit, we offer six public health priorities for your administration: issues that are both urgent and achievable, and that can accelerate the transformative agenda you have already set forth.
A partnership for a healthier, more just New York:
- Treat housing and cost of living as core public health policy
- Build a care-first community safety and mental health system
- Guarantee sexual, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health as essential city services
- Make New York a climate- and migrant-resilient city
- Invest in children and youth: make schools and childcare centers hubs for health
- Protect and strengthen New York City’s public health infrastructure
Mayor-elect Mamdani, your election has raised expectations—not just that New York can be more affordable, but that it can be more humane, more equitable, and more courageous in facing the intertwined crises of health, housing, climate, and democracy. Meeting those expectations will require bold choices, sustained investment, and a willingness to be judged not only by economic indicators, but by whether the most marginalized New Yorkers are healthier, safer, and more free.
At a moment when public health, science, and fundamental rights are under profound threat nationwide, we believe New York City can—and must—lead the way in building durable solutions that help communities not just survive, but thrive. Columbia University’s PopFam stands ready to partner with your administration in this work.
Our faculty and students bring deep expertise in maternal and reproductive health, mental health, forced migration, urban health, environmental health, climate and crisis resilience, youth and adolescent health, and community-driven health research, programming, and policy. We work across all five boroughs and neighbouring states. Many of our graduates already serve throughout the city’s hospitals, agencies, and community organizations.
We would welcome the opportunity to brief your team in more detail on these recommendations and to explore how our department can contribute evidence, training, and support to help make your public health vision a reality for all New Yorkers.
With respect and in solidarity,
Thoại D. Ngô, PhD, MHS (he/him)
Harriet and Robert H. Heilbrunn Professor and Chair
On behalf of faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health (PopFam) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health
SOURCE: An Open Letter to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani | Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, 16 December 2025
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How TikTok is being used to talk about abortion post-Roe: A content analysis of the most liked abortion TikToks
Abstract
Objectives
Access to information about abortion is essential for ensuring reproductive autonomy, particularly post-Roe. TikTok, a popular video-sharing application, may be a source of information about abortion, yet little is known about the tone and content of such videos. To fill this gap, we analyze the most liked abortion videos on TikTok three months following the U.S. Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Study design
We downloaded the top 200 most liked, publicly available TikTok videos when searching “abortion” on September 26, 2022 and recorded and summarized key video characteristics. We then qualitatively analyzed for content, tone, and common themes.
Results
The top 200 most liked TikTok videos collectively had approximately 164 million likes, nearly 10 million shares, and 4 million comments. Most videos expressed support for abortion and presented information that was political or personal in nature. Only two videos contained health information about obtaining or completing an abortion, and only five videos featured or were created by a medical provider.
Conclusions
Findings reveal the far reach of TikTok, which underscores the importance of analyzing online sources of information about abortion. However, our mixed-methods analysis indicates that the most liked TikToks are a source of abortion news, political opinion, personal stories, and debate rather than a source of health information for abortion seekers.
Implications
Our analysis finds that the top 200 most liked TikTok videos three months post-Dobbs are primarily political in nature. Relatively few videos provided practical information about accessing abortion care, presenting an opportunity for healthcare providers, public health advocates, and activists to improve access and awareness of new pathways to care. The most popular TikTok videos appear to disseminate news and political information rather than health information about abortion.
SOURCE: How TikTok is being used to talk about abortion post-Roe: A content analysis of the most liked abortion TikToks, by Zoe H Pleasure et al. Contraception. Vol. 133, May 2024, 110384.