PHDS Fact Sheet
Download the PHDS fact sheet [392 KB, 2 Pages].
Public Health Data Strategy
The Public Health Data Strategy (PHDS) outlines the data, technology, policy, and administrative actions essential to exchange critical core data efficiently and securely across healthcare and public health.
The strategy is designed to describe a path to address gaps in public health data, helping the nation become response-ready, promote health equity, and improve health outcomes for all.
Why the Public Health Data Strategy Matters
To advance core missions of robust public health data aimed at improving health outcomes equitably, the Public Health Data Strategy…
…addresses the imperative of the CDC Moving Forward effort to consistently deliver public health information and guidance to Americans in near real-time
…builds on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and other recent public health threats to be more response-ready
…aligns data modernization efforts at all levels of public health and across partners, focusing execution on near-term priority gaps
…measures success with specific 2-year milestones
…creates accountability for public health data with CDC’s newly established Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology (OPHDST)
The Public Health Data Goals …
Goal 1
Strengthen the core of public health data
Ensure Core Data Sources1 are more complete, timely, rapidly exchanged, and available to support the integrated ability to detect, monitor, investigate, and respond to public health threats
Goal 2
Accelerate access to analytic and automated solutions to support public health investigations and advance health equity
Make tools available so STLTs and public health decision-makers can better use public health data to address health disparities
Goal 3
Visualize and share insights to inform public health action
Serve as a trusted source for near real-time visualizations and offer situational awareness for the public and decision-makers to understand risks, make decisions, and direct resources
Goal 4
Advance more open and interoperable public health data
Enable exchange of interoperable data so that healthcare, STLTs, federal agency partners, and CDC programs can access and use data they need, when they need it
… Advance the Core Public Health Missions
- Detect and monitor
- Investigate and respond
- Inform and disseminate
- Be response-ready
How the Public Health Data Goals Will Drive Key Outcomes over the Next 2 Years
Illustrative Examples
Goal 1: Strengthen the core of public health data
- <7 days needed to detect a suspected disease outbreak and begin nationwide monitoring
- Reduced case reporting burden for STLTs and faster access to lab and mortality data
Goal 2: Accelerate access to analytic and automated solutions to support public health investigations and advance health equity
- Time saved on data cleaning and analytics through reusable technologies, enabling epidemiologists to focus on core public health missions
- Data available on demand to enable health disparities analyses across geographies, conditions, and settings
Goal 3: Visualize and share insights to inform public health action
- American public has near real-time awareness of the status of high-consequence diseases through a centralized data dissemination platform
- Faster, actionable insights from Core Data Sources
Goal 4: Advance more open and interoperable public health data
- Faster sharing of data through language and terms for data protection and use
- Increased data exchange back to healthcare providers to inform clinical decision-making
How the Public Health Data Strategy Focuses Execution of the Data Modernization Initiative
Public Health Data Strategy
- Streamlines efforts to enable efficient, secure exchange of critical core data2
- Supports CDC in building long term critical core data accountability, initial focus on what is most critical to deliver in next two years
- Creates accountability in the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology (OPHDST)
Data Modernization Initiative
- Outlines broad aspects of data modernization needed across the overall public health landscape (e.g., includes workforce and partnerships)
- Is an ongoing, multi-year undertaking with specific Phase 2 goals to be achieved by the end of 2023
- Is being undertaken across many different stakeholders with OPHDST and Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) leading CDC-wide coordination
1. Case (including electronic case reporting [eCR]), lab (including electronic lab reporting [ELR], Electronic Test Orders and Results [ETOR]), emergency department (including National Syndromic Surveillance Program [NSSP] emergency department data), vital statistics, immunization, healthcare capacity (including National Healthcare Safety Network [NHSN] data)
2. Not all critical core data sources or exhaustive aspects related to data modernization included