The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer survey for information on LGBT health in its Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) one of the world’s largest health surveys. 

The BRFSS operates data collection in all 50 U.S. states, surveying for information on an estimate 400,000 individuals each year and is the largest “continuously conducted health survey system in the world,” according to the CDC claims.

A CDC official confirmed the rollback at the American Association for Public Opinion Research in Denver on Wednesday.

“The BRFSS is one of the few federally-supported data collection activities that make the needs of LGBT people known to governmental agencies responsible for the safety, health and welfare of the public,” said Research Director Kerith J. Conron of UCLA’s The Williams Institute in a statement. “By removing LGBT measures from the BRFSS, the federal government is shirking its responsibility to LGBT Americans.”.

The survey confirmed for the first time “what smaller studies conducted in HIV epicenters had observed,” Conron said.

“The CDC’s announcement appears to be part of an alarming trend within the federal government aimed at limiting our knowledge about LGBT people, despite the fact that these data are vital to policy making and designing evidence-based interventions to improve health and well-being,” said Director of Federal Policy Adam P. Romero in a statement.

The CDC claims the BRFSS is “the nation’s premier system of health-related telephone surveys that collect state data about U.S. residents regarding their health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions and use of preventive services,