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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 non-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 dat…