New Jersey
- State Population: 8,908,520
- Local Health Departments: 94
- Frequent Public Health Emergencies: Severe Winter Storms/Tropical Cyclones, Environmental Contamination, Infectious Disease Outbreaks
- Key Emergency Operations Center Activations: 2020: COVID-19 Pandemic; 2018: Severe Storms and EMAC Deployments (USVI, NC); 2017: Severe Storms and EMAC Deployment (USVI)
- CDC PHEP Funding:
FY 2021: $15,725,569
FY 2020: $15,144,167 - CDC Crisis Response Funding: COVID-19
FY 2021: $52,948,504
FY 2020: $21,224,891
- Epidemiologists: 2
- Health Professionals: 4
- CDC Preparedness Field Staff: 1
- Other*: 18
*Includes IT specialists, administrative staff, statisticians, and other positions
- Public Health Surveillance and Epidemiologic Investigation
- Community Preparedness
- Medical Materiel Management and Distribution
- Information Sharing
- Medical Countermeasure Dispensing and Distribution
In New Jersey, PHEP supports regional epidemiologists who have trained 280 local health department staff in outbreak investigation so that they can rapidly identify and respond if an outbreak occurs. In March 2018, a local health department member who had received training in how to interview patients of gastrointestinal illness from the regional epidemiologist linked a group of E. coli cases to a specific chain restaurant. Thanks to this epidemiological expertise, New Jersey was one of the first states to identify this trend and share the findings with CDC, leading to a multistate investigation linking E. coli to romaine lettuce and a swift response to control the outbreak.
When Pope Francis made his first trip to the U.S. in September 2015, about 112,000 people traveled through the state of New Jersey for his visit to Philadelphia. This event was designated a National Security Special Event, meaning that it was a potential target for terrorism or other criminal activity.
