About CDC

CDC priorities statement

As the world's premier public health institute, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is at the front lines of public health threats to Americans, even when those threats emerge overseas. CDC must aim to protect the lives of all Americans, advancing health through science, technology, and innovation. CDC must lead with integrity to prevent and protect from diseases, detect emerging threats, both domestically and internationally, and drive state-of-the-art solutions-empowering communities and strengthening public health systems for a safer, healthier nation.

CDC serves the American public-individuals, families, and communities-who rely on accurate data, health guidance, and preventive measures. CDC also serves healthcare providers, researchers, policymakers, businesses, state and local health agencies, and global health partners that rely on CDC for data and guidance to scale improved health outcomes for all Americans at home and abroad. To strengthen public confidence and lead a modern public health system, CDC must be anchored in a set of core values that reflect the evolving needs and expectations of Americans.

Public trust in CDC must be restored through transparency and reliance on evidence-based scientific data and analysis. Americans benefit from practical, science-driven steps to protect their health and further expect proactive, fast responses to health risks. America additionally needs a public health system that embraces innovation and a modernized infrastructure.

Understanding the fundamental role CDC plays in the public health sphere, the following Priorities Statement illustrates the overall direction of CDC, in furtherance of the goals of the President and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary. The following is not an exhaustive list of CDC priorities but is, instead, a roadmap highlighting goals and priorities, all through the lens of providing Gold-Standard Science, as envisioned in the Make America Healthy Again Commission Report and the Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy.

President Trump and HHS Secretary Kennedy are committed to restoring trust, transparency, and credibility to CDC. CDC is committed to those goals and is likewise committed to ensuring that its leadership and all decisions are public facing and more accountable. CDC is committed to strengthening our public health system and restoring it to its core mission of protecting Americans from infectious and communicable diseases and investing in innovation to prevent, detect, and respond to such public health threats. CDC is further committed to ensuring that any outbreaks-including any response to those outbreaks-is addressed transparently and with evidenced-based data.

CDC is specifically prioritizing a commitment to: gold-standard science;1 global leadership; rebuilding trust, transparency, and credibility; rapid, evidence-based responses to crises; vaccine safety and efficacy research; advancing our understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), and chronic disease; modernizing public health infrastructure while enhancing our approach to health data; and otherwise ensuring compliance with the goals and priorities of the Trump Administration and HHS.

A commitment to gold-standard science and ensuring trust, transparency, and credibility

Public trust in CDC and public health has declined in recent years due to inconsistent messaging, lack of transparency, and challenges in responding appropriately to emerging health threats. Dwindling public trust has undermined CDC's ability to lead effectively during crises and has weakened public adherence to health recommendations. Strengthening and sustaining this trust is essential to CDC's mission, as it enables rapid decision-making, stronger partnerships, and coordinated national responses in times of crisis. More broadly, sustained trust ensures communities engage with prevention efforts, support science-based guidance, and contribute to a healthier, more resilient nation. Credibility is not just about better communication, it is foundational to CDC's long-term impact, effectiveness, and legitimacy.

CDC will achieve this trust and credibility by making its leadership more public-facing and accountable to Americans; improving data transparency and ensuring all recommendations are backed by clear, publicly accessible evidence; and establishing processes to ensure integrity in scientific decision-making.

As illustrated by the Trump Administration's Executive Order on "Restoring Gold Standard Science," CDC will conduct all science in a manner that is reproducible; transparent; communicative of error and uncertainty; collaborative and interdisciplinary; skeptical of its findings and assumptions; structured for falsifiability of hypotheses; subject to unbiased peer review; accepting of negative results as positive outcomes; and without conflicts of interest. CDC is committed to restoring a gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous, and impactful, and that all decisions are informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.

CDC is committed to restoring Americans' faith in the scientific enterprise and institutions that create and apply scientific knowledge in service of the public good. Employing gold-standard science methodologies will spur innovation, translate discovery to success, and ensure continued American strength and global leadership in technology.

A commitment to global leadership

CDC's Global Health Center addresses global challenges such as HIV, tuberculosis, vaccine-preventable diseases, and emergency and refugee health. When a viral hemorrhagic fever is identified, such as Ebola, CDC is first to confirm the diagnosis and provide guidance on how to contain the virus within a country and to prevent it from entering the United States.

Strategically located in 63 countries around the globe, CDC also serves another 20 countries from these hubs. As a major partner in implementing the PEPFAR program, CDC receives 40% of the resources and implements 60 percent of the program. Across the globe and often with external organizations, CDC is a trusted partner identifying risks early, sending out teams to combat highly infectious disease, training local clinical and public health staff, providing Personal Protective Equipment, vaccine and medicines, and offering advice to Americans abroad as well as supporting international Governments and Ministries of Health leadership and response. As part of an evolving system of response, the Biothreat Radar Detection program seeks out samples from wastewater and international travelers to know real-time when a new infection poses a risk to America. In addition, CDC receives infectious samples from around the globe offering rapid testing and surveillance to prepare for flu at home and guide rapid response for highly infectious diseases where they start and can travel around the globe. Through lessons learned from COVID-19, CDC has advanced its capacities to lead the world in keeping us safe here and abroad.

A commitment to ensuring rapid, evidence-based responses to crises

Public health emergencies need fast, coordinated, transparent, and evidence-based responses. Delays in data collection, fragmented decision-making, inconsistent guidance, and gaps in risk communication undermine the nation's ability to contain threats and protect lives. Ensuring rapid, science-driven responses is critical to minimizing harm, maintaining public trust, and restoring stability. To meet this goal, CDC must continue to strengthen its emergency response systems by streamlining internal processes, improving risk communication strategies, and ensuring that laboratory capacity is fully equipped and tested-capable of rapidly developing and deploying scalable diagnostics during crises. Embedding structures for real-time learning, independent after-action reviews, and the application of lessons learned will ensure that each crisis response is smarter, faster, and more effective than the last.

To meet the challenges of today and anticipate the challenges of tomorrow, CDC must evolve into a high-performing, mission-driven organization that embraces innovation and streamlines operations. Modernizing internal operations will ensure CDC is not only effective in crisis but consistently excellent in execution, delivering faster decisions, smarter resource use, and a greater impact for Americans.

A commitment to vaccine safety and efficacy research

Gold-Standard Science will be applied to all intramural and extramural CDC vaccine safety and efficacy research. CDC will ensure that CDC vaccine efficacy and safety databases and datasets as well as future contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, and the like, for such datasets and databases are available through the least burdensome public use data agreements to restore trust and improve efficacy and safety through transparency and accountability. CDC will also preserve all internal datasets, protocols, programs and adjustments to databases and datasets for public access and reproducibility.

A commitment to advancing our understanding of the causes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), and chronic disease

CDC is committed to conducting its own research while also partnering with other federal agencies and outside researchers and institutions to understand the etiology of the ASD and NDD epidemics. CDC will utilize existing and new data resources both within and outside of CDC to better understand factors associated with the increases in ASD, NDD, and chronic diseases that are plaguing our children and adults. CDC data indicates that ASD diagnoses have increased over the past 25 years from 1 in 150 to nearly 1 in 31.

A commitment to modernizing public health infrastructure and enhancing our approach to health data

Modernizing public health infrastructure is essential to building a faster, smarter, and more cost-effective health system-one that can detect and respond to outbreaks in real time, leverage advanced technologies, and deliver community-driven solutions. By investing in modern tools, integrated data, and state-of-the-art capabilities, CDC can lead a transformation that not only strengthens day-to-day operations but also ensures the nation is prepared for future health emergencies. CDC's traditional data silos are being replaced with robust, integrated data that fosters interdisciplinary research to get faster, more robust results for Americans.

Enhancing CDC's (and HHS's) approach to health data must recognize that the states serve as key partners and must be encouraged to maintain robust and up-do-date health data systems. There must be a shared responsibility across federal and state governments, while emphasizing the subsidiarity principle that public health functions should be performed at the lowest effective level of governance (the concept of subsidiarity), with federal structures offering support where scale or specialized expertise is required and as required by statute. Network governance highlights the importance of collaborative, interdependent nodes (state-based service units, federal expertise, and Health Data Utilities (HDUs)) working through shared standards rather than hierarchical command. Systems resilience frames the need for redundancy, adaptability, and transformability, ensuring that CDC can withstand shocks, respond to emerging public health crises, and evolve as public health challenges change. Collectively, these principles guide a strategy that positions public health as local in action, national in standards, and global in preparedness, while leveraging existing assets such as the Consumer Food Data System (CFDS) and Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers and modernizing infrastructure through HDUs.

Conflicts of interest

The public must know that unbiased science-evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest-guides the recommendations of our health agencies, and CDC-funded programs and activities carried out by Federal partners. CDC will deprioritize funding for programs that present conflicts of interest or otherwise compromise their objectivity or integrity in carrying out CDC-funded programs.

Immigration

Consistent with applicable federal law, Federal funds should not be used to encourage or support illegal immigration.

Protecting life and the family

CDC programs will not use taxpayer funds to fund or promote elective abortions, consistent with the Hyde Amendment. CDC will promote the dignity of human life at all stages of development, improve maternal health care, and strengthen the family.

Ending disorder on America's streets

CDC grants will prioritize evidence-based programs and deprioritize programs that fail to achieve adequate outcomes, including so-called "harm reduction" or "safe consumption" efforts that only facilitate illegal drug use and its attendant harm, consistent with SAMHSA guidance issued on July 29, 2025.

CDC will deprioritize support for "housing first" policies that fail to ensure accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency. CDC will increase competition among grantees through broadening the applicant pool and hold grantees to higher standards of effectiveness in reducing homelessness and increasing public safety. CDC will ensure that its funds reduce rather than promote homelessness by supporting, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable federal law, comprehensive services for individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorder, including crisis intervention services.

CDC does not support drug injection sites for illegal drugs, or so-called "safe consumption sites," or the use or distribution of illegal drugs and associated paraphernalia.

To the extent allowable by applicable federal law, CDC intends to give priority to grantees in States and municipalities that actively meet the below criteria: (i) enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use; (ii) enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering; (iii) enforce prohibitions on urban squatting; (iv) enforce, and where necessary, adopt, standards that address individuals who are a danger to themselves or others and suffer from serious mental illness or substance use disorder, or who are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves, through assisted outpatient treatment or by moving them into treatment centers or other appropriate facilities via civil commitment or other available means, to the maximum extent permitted by law; or (v) substantially implement and comply with, to the extent required, the registration and notification obligations of the Sex Offender Registry and Notification Act, particularly in the case of registered sex offenders with no fixed address, including by adequately mapping and checking the location of homeless sex offenders.

Gender ideology and protecting children

CDC believes the health and safety of children must be the highest priority. HHS released a comprehensive review of the evidence and best practices for promoting the health of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. This review, informed by an evidence-based medicine approach, found medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, that attempt to transition minors away from their sex are unsupported by the evidence and have an unfavorable risk/benefit profile. Based on that evidence, it is a CDC priority to protect children from these practices, and, to the extent allowable by applicable federal law and any relevant court orders, CDC programs will deprioritize programs that engage in these practices where permissible. CDC funds will also not support the costs of such practices where not required by the law or court order.

HHS released guidance promulgating sex-based definitions rooted in biological truth. It is a CDC priority to recognize that a person's sex as either male or female is unchangeable and determined by objective biology, and to ensure CDC programs accurately reflect science, including the biological reality of sex.

DEI

To the extent permitted by law, CDC will deprioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that prioritize group identity over individual merit. CDC believes opportunities should be based on character, effort, and ability, not race or other group identity. CDC is committed to restoring merit-based opportunities and removing unlawful discriminatory practices (including unlawful proxies for racial discrimination).

CDC has previously invested substantially in ideologically-laden concepts like health equity-mainly on identifying and documenting worse health outcomes for minority populations. This has not translated into measurable improved health for minority populations, and in many cases has undermined core American values.

CDC will prioritize efforts that go beyond the use of ideologically laden concepts to focusing on solution-oriented approaches. This includes actively testing, advancing, scaling, and implementing innovative evidence-based interventions and treatments that address poor health outcomes, including the root causes of Americans' chronic disease epidemic.

Parental rights

CDC believes parents are the primary decision-makers in their children's education and should have full authority over what their children are taught. School policies should include transparency and choice, and curricula should emphasize knowledge, critical thinking, and civic responsibility, without imposing ideas that may conflict with parents' political, religious, or social beliefs. CDC will prioritize funding Federal partners that protect parental rights and provide maximum transparency to parents and the public.

CDC will implement these priorities consistent with applicable laws, regulations, court orders, and any required procedures.