The Public Health Data Strategy

The PHDS is CDC’s mission-focused, goal-driven, two-year plan providing accountability for data, technology, policy and administrative actions necessary to meet public health data goals. Its measurable milestones address challenges in data exchange between healthcare organizations and public health authorities and between state, tribal, local, territorial and federal public health authorities.

The Public Health Data Strategy (PHDS) provides a way for public health partners, healthcare organizations and the public to understand what is being done, and the progress being made:

To address gaps in public health data.
To reduce the complexity of data exchange.
To help the nation promote health equity.
To provide timely and actionable data.
To improve health outcomes for all.

The plan consists of milestones for 2024 and 2025 for each of the four public health data goals.

Goal 1: Strengthen the core of public health data.
Goal 2: Accelerate access to analytic and automated solutions to support public health investigations and advance health equity.
Goal 3: Visualize and share insights to inform public health action.
Goal 4: Advance more open and interoperable public health data.

These ambitious milestones:

Define near-term public health data goals, outcomes and measures of success.
Ensure the nation’s public health ecosystem is response-ready, able to quickly and effectively address new threats.
Deliver a future-state vision that enables faster, more complete and more secure exchange of high-quality critical core data sources between health care and public health.

4 core public health missions: detect and monitor, investigate and respond, inform and disseminate, and be response-ready

The PHDS supports CDC in building long-term accountability for critical core data sources including case, laboratory, emergency department visits, vital statistics, immunization, healthcare capacity and wastewater data.

Enhancement of these data sources and technologies advances public health core capabilities at all levels of government, strengthening public health digital infrastructure and situational awareness in support of the American Pandemic Preparedness Plan and improving risk awareness and threat detection in alignment with Goal 1 of the National Biodefense Strategy .

These are the data and technology goals of the PHDS to advance four core public health missions which will equitably improve health outcomes:

Address the imperative of the CDC Moving Forward effort to consistently deliver public health information and guidance to partners, including the public, in near real-time.
Align data modernization efforts at all levels of public health and across partners, measuring success through concrete and measurable two-year milestones.
Build on lessons learned from recent public health threats such as COVID-19 and mpox to be more response ready.
Create accountability for public health data within CDC’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology focused on leading the execution of public health data efforts.