Publications and Resources

Picture of several publications laying on top of one another

CDC’s is committed to improving the value of public health surveillance and data. Learn more about this ongoing work by reading the resources below.

Highlighted Publications

The 2021 DMI Snapshot is a both a record of our progress and a testament to the many thousands of people who worked over these long months to modernize public health surveillance and data in meaningful and lasting ways. This work has delivered an extraordinary amount of data to understand the burden of COVID-19, and the gains we have made are now building a bridge to a new kind of surveillance and better approaches to public health data.

Download and print the DMI Snapshot 2021: Building a Strong Foundation [PDF – 1 MB].

Visit DMI Snapshot Page

CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative (DMI) is how our nation will move from siloed and brittle public health data systems to connected, resilient, adaptable, and sustainable ‘response-ready’ systems. Grounded in this ambitious vision, the DMI Strategic Implementation Plan lays out five key priorities and a supporting set of objectives that are interdependent and equally important to reaching the future state. Each of these priorities and its objectives will lead us toward specific key results by which we can measure our impact.

Download and print the Data Modernization Initiative Strategic Implementation Plan [PDF – 1 MB].

Select DMI-Related Publications
Select Surveillance Publications 2014-2018

The following publications from external partners and CDC offer critical insights and recommendations that are informing the work of CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative.

The list below consists of peer-reviewed literature as well as official reports from professional organizations, national commissions, and more. The authors represent a wide range of professional sectors, including federal and state government, academia, the private sector, the non-profit sector, and policymakers. This list will continue to be updated.

Armooh, T., Barton, T., Castillo, G., Cinnick, S., Clark, S., Giles-Cantrell, B., Gorenflo, G., Hoagland, G. W., Horneffer, K., Pardal, A., Parekh, A., Pham, T., Resnick, B., Rice, S., Sellers, K., Shirley, L., & Wu, K. (2021, December). Public Health Forward: Modernizing the U.S. Public Health System. The Bipartisan Policy Center.
Aturaliya, R., Espinosa, O., Lafronza, V., Ransom, M., & Bleser, J. (2021). Challenges and Opportunities for Strengthening the US Public Health Infrastructure: Findings from the Scan of the Literature.
Braun, P. (2020). Public Health Data Modernization Executive Summary Report. [PDF]
Cassel, C., Chyba, C., Graham, S. L., Holdren, J. P., Lander, E. S., Levin, R., Penhoet, E., Press, W., Savitz, M., & Varmus, H. (2020). Epidemiological Modeling Needs New, Coherent, Federal Support for the Post-COVID-19 Era.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020). Public Health Data Modernization: Listening Session on Real-World Testing of 21st Century Cures Act Requirements.
The Commonwealth Fund. (2022). Meeting America’s Public Health Challenge.
Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists. (2022). Addressing Gaps in Public Health Reporting of Race and Ethnicity Data for COVID-19.
Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists. (2019). Driving Public Health in the Fast Lane: The Urgent Need for a 21st Century Data Superhighway.
The Data Coalition. (2021, November 15). Request for Information on Behalf of the Federal Chief Data Officers Council. The Data Foundation.
Daschle, T., First, B., Wilensky, G., Burke, S., Capretta, J., Crippen, D., Hamburg, M., Jennings, C., Lavizzo-Mourey, R., Roper, W., Smith, M., & Wen, L. (2021). Positioning America’s public health system for the next pandemic. Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. The Bipartisan Policy Center.
Dastvar, D., & Averill, D. (2021). The National Public Health Data System: The case for an aggregated national healthcare database. [Whitepaper].
DeSalvo, K., Hughes, B., Basset, M., Benjamin, G., Fraser, M., Galea, S., Gracia, N. J., & Howard, J. (2021). Public Health COVID-19 Impact Assessment: Lessons Learned and Compelling Needs. NAM Perspective. doi: 10.31478/202104c.
DeSalvo, K. B., Wang, Y. C., Harris, A., Auerbach, J., Koo, D., & O’Carroll, P. (2017). Public Health 3.0: A Call to Action for Public Health to Meet the Challenges of the 21^st Century. Prev Chronic Dis, 14(170017). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd14.170017.
Digital Bridge Public Health API Workgroup. (2021, September). Public Health API Concept Paper Version 1.0.
Gee, R. E., & Khan, A. S. (2021) Leading the world again: creating a 21st-century public health agency. Am J Public Health, 111(4):594–596.
George, D. B., Taylor, W., Shaman, J., Rivers, C., Paul, B., O’Toole, T., Johansson, M. A., Hirschman, L., Biggerstaff, M., Asher, J., & Reich, N. G. (2019). Technology to advance infectious disease forecasting for outbreak management. Nature Communications, 10(3932). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11901-7.
Gerberding, J. L. (2021). Back to the Future of Public Health. American Journal of Public Health,111(4):596-7.
Hamburg, M.A., Cohen, M, et al. (2022). Building a National Public Health System in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine. 2022 June 21. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2207374. Epub ahead of print.
Health Information Technology Advisory Committee. (2021, July 14). Public Health Data Systems Task Force 2021 Report to the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee.
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. (2022, April 29). Public Health Information and Technology Infrastructure Modernization Funding Report: Care Investment Strategies to Modernize and Interoperate Federal, State, Local, Tribal Public Health Systems.
Kadakia, K. T., Howell, M. D., & DeSalvo, K. B. (2021). Modernizing Public Health Data Systems: Lessons From the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 326(5), 385-386. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2021.12000
Krofah, E., Gasca, C., & Degarmo, A. (2021). A Global Early Warning System for Pandemics: Mobilizing Surveillance for Emerging Pathogens. Milken Institute.
Mok, L., & Ramirez, J. (2020). Develop the Competencies Your Workforce Needs for the Digital Ecosystem (Garter, Inc).
The National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems. (2021). Charting a Course for an Equity-Centered Data System: Recommendations from the National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The National Network of Public Health Institutes & The Texas Health Institute. (2021, November). The Future of Public Health: A Synthesis Report for the Field.
Partnership for Public Service. (2020). Bit by Bit: How Government Used Technology to Move the Mission Forward During COVID-19. Microsoft.
Partnership for Public Service. (2021). Retracing Steps: Reflecting on Management Lessons in Public Health Data Infrastructure During COVID-19.
Partnership for Public Service. (2021). Roadmap for Renewing our Federal Government.
Singletary, V., & Kerr, J. (2021). Building Back Better: Transforming U.S. public health data and infrastructure to protect health and achieve health equity. Public Health Informatics Institute.
Singletary, V., Richards, C. L., Ross, D. A., O’Carroll, P., & Baker, E. L. (2021). Modernizing Our Nation’s Public Health Information System: Toward an Integrated Approach. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 27(5), 521-525. DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001400
The Rockefeller Foundation. (2021). Accelerating National Genomic Surveillance: Action Plan Towards a Coordinated, Robust Genomic Surveillance System in the United States.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2020). Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy.
van Panhuis, W. G., Paul, P., Emerson, C., Grefenstette, J., Wilder, R., Herbst, A. J., Heymann, D., & Burke, D. S. (2014). A systematic review of barriers to data sharing in public health. BMC Public Health, 14(1144). DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-114

Featured Publication: Public Health Surveillance: Preparing for the Future chronicles the CDC strategy to improve the agency’s public health surveillance and data capabilities over 3 to 5 years and sets the stage for a more transformative strategy to improve the value of public health data.

Additional Publications:

Ahier B. FHIR and the future of interoperability. Healthcare IT News. January 6, 2015. http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fhir-and-future-interoperability.
Benjamin EJ, Virani SS, Callaway CW, et al. Heart disease and stroke statistics—2018 update: a report from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2018;137(12):e67-492. http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/137/12/e67.
Public Health Surveillance at CDC. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Updated August 24, 2018. Accessed December 8, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/Improving-Surveillance-Background.html.
How Sharing Data Digitally Benefits Health: Bridging Public Health and Health Care. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Updated July 13, 2018. Accessed December 8, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/bridging-public-health-and-health-care-better-exchange-better-data.html.
CDC Health Information Innovation Consortium (CHIIC). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Updated February 15, 2019. Accessed December 8, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/ophss/chiic/overview.html.
Health Information Innovation Consortium (CHIIC): Project Portfolio. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Updated February 15, 2019. Accessed December 8, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/ddphss/chiic/project_portfolio.html.
Public Health Surveillance and Data: Projects. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. August 9, 2021. Accessed December 8, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/Progress-and-Projects.html.
Department of Health and Human Services. Modernizing Morality Data Systems and Analytic Tools at CDC: Strengthening mortality data infrastructure to improve and safeguard the health of our nation. 2018. https://www.hhs.gov/cto/projects/modernizing-mortality-data-systems-and-analytic-tools-at-cdc/index.html.
Edison L, Erickson A, Smith S, et al. Notes from the Field: Counterfeit Percocet – Related Overdose Cluster – Georgia. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2017; 66:1119-1120. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6641a6.htm. PDF Available.
Gould DW, Walker D, Yoon PW. The evolution of BioSense: lessons learned and future directions. Public Health Reports. 2017;132(Suppl 1):7s-1s. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0033354917706954.
Lee B. Martin T, Khan A, Fullerton K, et al. Modernizing Centers for Disease Control and prevention informatics using surveillance data platform shared services. Public Health Reports. 2018;133(2):130-135. https://www.cdc.gov/sdp/docs/ModernizingCDCInformatics_Journal.pdf.
Lee D, host. “How to listen your way to the future of healthcare”. The #HCBiz Show, episode 24, Glide Health IT, October 26, 2017, https://thehcbiz.com/listen-way-future-healthcare-dr-chesley-richards-cdc/.
Mac Kenzie WR, Davidson AJ, Wiesenthal A, et al. The Promise of Electronic Case Reporting. Public Health Reports. 2016:131;742-746. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033354916670871. PDF Available
Office of Public Health Scientific Services. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public Health Surveillance: Preparing for the Future. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; September 2018. https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/improving-surveillance/index.html. PDF Available
Prothero G. The future of FHIR. Becker’s Health IT and CIO Report. July 17, 2017. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/the-future-of-fhir.htmlexternal icon.
Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE). Review of Recommendations for the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System: A State and Local Health Department Perspective. April 2013. https://cdn.ymaws.com/sites/www.cste.org/resource/resmgr/PDFs/NNDSS_Report.pdf.
Richards CL. Bridging public health and technology: why innovation matters. Presentation at: GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar; November 17, 2017; Atlanta, GA. http://hg.gatech.edu/node/598433.
Richards CL, Iademarco MF, Anderson TC. A new strategy for public health surveillance at CDC: improving national surveillance activities and outcomes. Public Health Reports. 2014; 129(6):472-476. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4187298/.
Richards CL, Iademarco MF, Atkinson D, et al. Advances in public health surveillance and information dissemination at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public Health Reports. 2017;132(4):403-410. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0033354917709542.
Richards CL, Lee B. CDC Surveillance Strategy – A strategy for improving CDC activities in public health surveillance. Online J Public Health Inform. 2015;7(1):e49. http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4512337.
Spencer MR, Ahmad F. Timeliness of Death Certificate Data for Mortality Surveillance and Provisional Estimates. National Center for Health Statistics. January 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/report001.pdf.
Yoon PW, Ising AI, Gunn JE (Eds.). Syndromic Surveillance: The Value of Real-time Data for Public Health Action. Public Health Reports Volume 132, Issue 1_suppl, July/August 2017. https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/phrg/132/1_suppl.
Toon J (Ed.). The health informatics revolution. Research Horizons. 2016;3. http://www.rh.gatech.edu/features/health-informatics-revolution.
Lamb E, Satre J, Pon S, et al. Update on progress in electronic reporting of laboratory results to public health agencies – United States, 2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2015;64(12):328-330. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4584531/. PDF Available.
Vivolo-Kantor AM, Seth P, Gladden RM, et al. Vital Signs: trends in emergency department visits for suspected opioid overdoses — United States, July 2016–September 2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2018;67(9):279–285. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6709e1.htm.

Conferences, Presentations, and Abstracts

November 2021 – Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) Meeting: Presentation: CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative
October 2021 – IEEE Standards Association’s WAMIII Virtual Talk Series: Interview: Executive Interview with the CDC
May 2021 – Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC) Meeting: Meeting Notes, Presentation: Public Health Data Systems
May 2021 – National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB) Meeting: Presentation: CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative
May 2021 – Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) 2021 Data Modernization Workshop: Agenda, Keynote Presentation: What’s Next for Data Modernization?
April 2021 – National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS), Full Committee Meeting: Summary, Presentation: Public Health Data + IT Modernization at CDC
March 2021 – Article, Fyne Fettle: CDC Data Modernization Lead Outlines 4 Challenges To Tracking COVID-19

June 2018 – NCHS Board of Scientific Counselor Meeting: Agenda, Presentations
June 2018 – FHIR DevDays 2018 Conference: Presentation: FHIR and Public Health
March 2018 – HIMSS 18 Conference: Presentation, Maximizing EHR Data for Public Health Reporting
January, 2018 –NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON VITAL AND HEALTH STATISTICS, Full Committee – Agenda, Briefing: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR): A New Paradigm for Exchanging Health Information

December, 2017 – ONC Annual Meeting, Tackling Barriers to Interoperability and Usability
November, 2017 – CDC/ATSDR GIS Day 2017
November, 2017 – Approaches and tools to enhance the management, evaluation and visualization of science and technology programs
November, 2017 – Podcast-How to Listen Your Way to the Future of Healthcare
November, 2017 – Bridging Public Health and Technology— Why Innovation Matters, GA Tech/School of Interactive Computing
November, 2017 – Health IT Leadership Conference, Richards’ Presentation – Bridging People and Technology – Why Population Health Matters
October, 2017 – National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME) 2017 Annual Meeting Program
September, 2017 – National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, Full Committee, Agenda, Written Testimony of Chesley Richards, MD, MPH, FACP, Deputy Director for Public Health Scientific Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),Panel: Challenges and Opportunities: Federal Level, Panel: Future Directions
September, 2017 – National Center for Health Statistics, Board of Scientific Counselors, September 6 – 7, 2017, Update on CDC Surveillance Strategy- Where Data Meets Reality
June, 2017– Modernizing Public Health through Shared Services
June, 2017 – Investigation of a Canine Parvovirus Outbreak using Next Generation Sequencing
June, 2017 – ITdotHealth IV, 2017— The last Mile: Delivering apps and services to the point of care using SMART-on-FHIR. “The Death Worm”: A SMART-on-FHIR, Clinical Decision Support Tool for Mortality Reporting: Click for Video ,Click for Slides
June, 2017 – Modernizing CDC Informatics Using Surveillance Data Platform Shared Services: DoD/VA and Government Health IT Summit , ”Coordinating a Connected Health IT Environment for Military and Government”
May, 2017 – Public Health Data: A Conversation with Brian Lee, Business of Government Hour, Radio

October 2016 – Abstract 2: Evaluating the Surveillance-Related Programs and Workforce of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2016 American Evaluation Association Conference, presentation-Slides posted: http://comm.eval.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=14a48938-79c6-7109-12c3-0af800c4f61f&forceDialog=0

November, 2015 – Abstract 2: How to Build a Research Evaluation Team in the Era of Big Data
October, 2015 – CDC Open Data Hackathon and Overview
October, 2015 – Abstract 2: How to Build a Research Evaluation Team in the Era of Big Data Presentation, 2015 American Evaluation Association Conference, presentation-Slides posted: http://comm.eval.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=72cf3148-e442-5ce7-cd8b-4633afa215f9&forceDialog=0
Fall, 2015 – Using Data Resources to Build a Stronger Infrastructure in Health, 9^th Annual Health 2.0 Conference
June, 2015 – Online Toolkit to Support EHR-Based Surveillance Program Planning
March, 2015 – Understanding Death Can Improve Health – Making Mortality Reporting More Timely and Useful. More >>
January, 2015 – CDC Surveillance Strategy: Improving Data Collection and Use in CDC Public Health Surveillance
November, 2014 – Webinar: A New Strategy for Public Health Surveillance at CDC: Improving National Surveillance Activities and Outcomes, Association of Schools of Public Health

Page last reviewed: June 24, 2022

Content source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Deputy Director for Public Health Science and Surveillance (DDPHSS)