At a glance
Overview
Launched in 2023 as part of a groundbreaking undertaking to modernize public health data, the Public Health Data Strategy (PHDS) has driven meaningful progress — delivering faster, more complete data, advanced analytics, and stronger connections between CDC and public health partners.
A key innovation is the One CDC Data Platform (1CDP), a unified data platform supporting CDC's everyday work as well as public health emergency response. It connects CDC and partners to shared data, tools, and capabilities all in one place, enhancing collaboration and efficiency. Six core public health data sources — emergency department visits, case reports, laboratory results, wastewater surveillance data, census data, and behavioral risk factor survey data — are available to authorized users for rapid data integration, analysis, and visualization to inform public health action.
Together, these advancements are reshaping how we detect health threats and laying the foundation for a more responsive, data-driven public health system of the future.
Faster and more comprehensive data
The nation is gaining a more comprehensive picture of emerging outbreaks and health trends now that 38 states have at least 90 percent of their emergency departments (EDs) submitting ED visit data to the National Syndromic Surveillance Program.
CDC is now receiving inpatient hospitalization data from an additional 575 healthcare facilities. Increasing the number of facilities sharing in-patient data is important to understand hospitalization from admission through discharge and helps monitor the health of the nation.
Fifteen jurisdictions currently share real-time hospital bed capacity data with CDC, and an additional 18 are on track to begin sharing data soon. This data improves patient care coordination, helping hospitals and health systems quickly locate available beds when patients need them most. It also gives public health agencies timely information to help resource coordination, inform local decision-making, and provide a better understanding of healthcare system capacity across the nation.
When public health agencies can directly receive data from electronic case reports (eCR), data are more accurate, complete, and timely. Healthcare providers can spend less time on manual data entry and more time on patient care.
- Nearly three in five critical access hospitals are now reporting via eCR, sharing a more complete picture of the health of their rural communities.
- Fourteen public health agencies have ended or are piloting processes to end duplicative reporting for certain conditions through the use of eCR. An additional four public health agencies have a plan to use eCR to end duplicative reporting.
- A growing number of tribal nations are receiving eCR data directly, increasing awareness of health conditions affecting their members.
- Four states and one tribe are using eCR data to pilot a way to identify prevalence of conditions not easily found through traditional data exchange pathways. Current pilots are focused on identifying cases to inform interventions for cancer, birth defects, and occupational diseases such as silicosis and asbestosis.
Data from wastewater (sewage) serves as an early warning system for emerging infections. By analyzing community-level wastewater samples, health officials can track virus trends, identify new variants and compare infection levels across regions. CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System now receives wastewater early warning signals of many infectious diseases, including seasonal flu, bird flu, COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, measles, and monkeypox.
Accessible data for decision making
Dashboards that combine data from multiple sources and present them in an easy-to-understand fashion make it easier to recognize public health threats and make decisions to protect the health of individuals, families and communities. Most recently, CDC has developed dashboards for measles, monkeypox, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
Data use agreements for core data sources such as case, laboratory, emergency department, and vital statistics facilitate faster and more seamless sharing of this public health data between state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) health departments and CDC programs. Since the launch of the Core Data Use Agreement in 2024, seven jurisdictions have signed and adopted it.
New tools put advanced analytics directly into the hands of state and local decision-makers. A wastewater outbreak tool is being piloted that allows tracking of hyper-local wastewater results in 1CDP to aid public health decision making by local and state health officials.
Advanced analytic tools are now available that expand capabilities for validation and statistical analysis of complex healthcare data assets and enhance scientific rigor in public health research.
Automated data exchange
Reducing the reliance on manual processes of receiving, processing or using healthcare data for STLT health departments expedites threat detection. Tools such as Data Integration Building Blocks (DIBBS) and systems such as the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System Base System (NBS) are helping health departments detect trends earlier, allocate resources more effectively, and respond more quickly to public health threats.
Expanded use of electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) is speeding up exchange of laboratory test results between CDC and state public health laboratories, particularly critical in times of outbreaks. Nearly three out of four state public health labs are now able to accept ELR.
An increasing number of jurisdictions are now exchanging vital statistics data with CDC via FHIR®1. Seventeen jurisdictions are actively sharing death data and five have tested sharing birth data via FHIR.
- FHIR® is a registered trademark of Health Level Seven International and use of this trademark is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement by HL7®.