At a glance

Key Milestones
Complex threats expose gaps and prompt action
- Partners that public health data are “moving slower than disease”
Epidemics like opioids, suicide, and EVALI challenge public health’s capabilities
Public Health Data Modernization Initiative (DMI) launches with a vision of world class data and analytics
ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø answers the urgent call
- Focus on core surveillance systems improves early warning signals for biggest health threats
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø releases to share technology resources and foster innovation
- New IT and Data Governance unifies ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø’s investments in modernization
For the first time, Congress dedicates to support data modernization
Growing support for modernization
- Data standards, such as ®, and new federal policies push modernization forward
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø expands data-ready innovation with healthcare, academic, and research partners
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø awards first funding to states for data modernization and system interoperability
- DMI lays out a strategic roadmap to guide modernization and evaluation
Volume and velocity of COVID-19 cases quickly overwhelms public health data systems
Answering the pandemic
- Multiple ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø surveillance systems extend ability to track COVID-19
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø rapidly onboards health departments to automate transmission of electronic laboratory reports
- Huge leaps in electronic case reporting (eCR) automate real-time information exchange between thousands of healthcare facilities
- Provisional COVID-19 death data and new data on excess deaths informs response
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø and federal agencies stand up to track mental, social, and economic health
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø integrates data from multiple core surveillance systems into interface
designates $500M to support rapid modernization
Accelerating the strategy
- Accelerated investments and projects increase capacity to rapidly detect and respond to the pandemic
- Assigned Implementation Leads align, coordinate, monitor, and measure progress toward future state
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø expands programs for state-of-the-art data science, visualization, and informatics training
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø and the pilot pandemic-ready systems at state and local health departments
Congress dedicates $50 million in FY 2021 to continue data modernization activities.
The American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act provides an additional $500 million to ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø to advance surveillance and analytics infrastructure, as well as to establish a forecasting center for emerging biological threats.
Expanding our capabilities
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø built an immunization data lake to handle the massive COVID-19 vaccine roll-out and delivery.
- ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø created a cloud-based platform to catalogue, analyze, and publish findings faster than previously possible.
- Ongoing improvements to data collection and sharing improve health equity.
- In August 2021, ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø stands up the new national Center for Epidemic Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics.
- New cloud-based and computational capabilities enable ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø to process millions of unique SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences.
Congress dedicates $100M in FY 2022 and $175M in FY 2023 to modernize public health data surveillance and analytics at ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø and state and local health departments. The FY 2024 President’s Budget Request was over $165M.
ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø’s Moving Forward initiative stands up the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology to lead a first-ever Public Health Data Strategy.
Stories from around the country capture the increasing impacts of transforming data to protect people’s health.
The path to prevention
- Continued modernization ensures an effective and efficient approach to lifesaving prevention and response.