Role of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is responsible for developing and implementing disease prevention and control, environmental health, and health promotion and health education activities made to improve the health of the people of the United States. In order to fulfill its mission, the CDC identifies and defines preventable health problems and develops programs to maintain active surveillance of diseases and promote public health.

The CDC also takes on the role of controlling the introduction and spread of infectious diseases, and provides assistance to states, other nations and international agencies to assist in improving their disease prevention and control, environmental health, and health promotion activities.

The Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program under the CDC works to advance six main areas of preparedness in order to prepare state and local public health systems for emergencies: community resilience; incident management; information management; countermeasures and mitigation; surge management; and biosurveillance.