Public Health Informatics and Technology Program Office

Informatics Research and Development Unit

The mission of Informatics Research and Development Unit (IRDU) is to advance the field of public health informatics through applied research and innovation. This unit will collaborate with members of CDC programs as well as the broader public health community to develop innovative technologies and techniques to positively impact public health practice in the short and long-term time frames. Once demonstrated to be of value, new informatics solutions or techniques will be transitioned to the appropriate public health program for formal deployment and implementation.

IRDU will:

• Provide the Public Health Informatics and Technology Program Office, the Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services (OSELS), CDC, and its external research and public health partners, consultation, guidance, support, and insight into the use of new informatics solutions for public health practice;
• Rapidly create and validate hypotheses generated by the Public Health Informatics and Technology Program Office, OSELS, CDC, and its external research and public health partners;
• Provide the Public Health Informatics and Technology Program Office, OSELS and CDC an optimal (i.e., flexible and scalable) environment for the rapid development of prototype public health informatics solutions for testing and evaluation purposes.

This environment exists as the IRDU R&D lab. The site of the lab can be accessed here: http://www.phiresearchlab.org