CDC Works for You 24/7

CDC works 24/7 keeping America safe from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and domestic. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights it and supports communities and citizens to prevent it. CDC is the nation’s health protection agency - saving lives, protecting people from health threats, and saving money through prevention.

CDC’s Disease Detective Camp

Twice a summer the David J. Spencer CDC Museum hosts a Disease Detectives Camp for high school students. This June, during a week-long crash course in epidemiology, a group of juniors and seniors had a chance to explore not only CDC’s Atlanta campus, but also the many jobs that CDC has to offer.

CDC Vital to Healthy Work Force

"Disease knows no borders. Outbreaks that start in remote corners of the world can travel to the U.S. as quickly as a plane can fly. And CDC's science about what works to keep employees and their families healthy helps ensure that we can compete in markets around the world. CDC not only helps safeguard the health of our employees and their families, but also helps safeguard the economic health of Georgia." - John Rice, vice chairman of General Electric Co., president and CEO of GE Global Growth and Operations, and a CDC Foundation board member

CDC Test for Dengue Fever Approved
Dengue, a painful and sometimes deadly viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes, threatens more than 3.5 billion people worldwide. Dengue is endemic in at least 100 countries in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, and parts of Africa.

CDC’s Tobacco Lab Aids FDA Regulations
Even though smoking is the leading preventable cause of lung cancer, prior to the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, tobacco products in the United States were not regulated to reduce their impact on public health.

CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey System
CDC ’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey System is the only surveillance system designed to monitor a wide range of priority health risk behaviors among representative samples of high school students. The 2011 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows that U.S. high school students have shown significant progress over the past two decades in improving many health-risk behaviors associated with the leading cause of death among youth—motor vehicle crashes. However, challenges remain in other key areas such as texting while driving. Read more about the 2011 Survey.