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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Emergency Operations Center (EOC) assists public health partners in responding to disease outbreaks. The EOC played an important role during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, which affected thousands of people in the United States in the first months after the disease emerged in China.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

United States agency
Also known as: CDC, Communicable Disease Center
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: • Article History
Quick Facts
Date:
1946 - present
Headquarters:
Atlanta
Areas Of Involvement:
public health
preventive medicine
Related People:
David Satcher
See all related content

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, headquartered in Atlanta, whose mission is centred on preventing and controlling disease and promoting environmental health and health education in the United States. Part of the Public Health Service, it was founded in 1946 as the Communicable Disease Center to fight malaria and other infectious diseases. As its scope widened to polio, smallpox, and disease surveillance, the name was changed to the Center for Disease Control and later pluralized.

Gloved hands draw liquid from a vial into a syringe, overlaid on a digitally colored microscopic image of a virus with round particles in clusters.
How we develop new vaccinesWorried about diphtheria? No? Thank vaccines.
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Today the CDC subsumes health statistics, infectious diseases, and environmental health; a National Immunization Program; and an Office on Smoking and Health. It consolidates disease-control data, health promotion, disease prevention and preparedness, and public health programs, and it provides grants for studies and programs, health information to health care professionals and the public, and publications on epidemiology. It is among the world’s foremost epidemiological centres.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Meg Matthias.
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