The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must modernize its data collection and communication methods to respond to emerging public health threats, according to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. The CDC needs to coordinate with cities, counties, and states to develop a national strategy for addressing large-scale health issues. Information sharing among public health entities must be a collaborative effort. Infrastructure must be set up to connect multiple data systems to give the necessary data to suitable people at the appropriate time.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been subject to criticism regarding its response. The Director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, has called for a significant change in how public health data is collected and communicated. This change is not limited to organizational transformation but rather requires a technical and operational overhaul of the CDC. The ultimate goal is to learn from past mistakes and ensure that any future health threats are addressed in a coordinated and swift manner.
Addressing and responding to emerging public health threats necessitates access to data from federal, state, and local sources. However, sharing this data is challenging. Public health issues are complex, and no single agency possesses all the talent or resources to communicate and manage them effectively. Close collaboration between organizations at all levels is required to achieve the required level of expertise. The CDC collects data from 50 states and over 3,000 tribal, local, and territorial jurisdictions to evaluate the impact of chronic conditions, but it has no authority when it comes to collecting data. This is the first problem that modernization efforts must address.
Collaboration between state and local entities is critical in addressing the broader tangible issue. The CDC needs to work towards alleviating gaps in the public health system by coordinating with cities, counties, and states to create a national strategy for addressing large-scale health issues. This is not impossible, as evidenced by the agency’s successful partnership with the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Effective information sharing among public health entities must be a collaborative effort. Only by having partners who speak a common data language can agencies have the information they require to make informed decisions to mitigate public health threats.
Congress recognizes the importance of collaboration, and it has introduced the Improving DATA in Public Health Act, which aims to facilitate the secure transfer of critical health data and improve coordination between key stakeholders. This is a step in the right direction, but given the scope and scale of the problem, additional action is required.
Within the CDC alone, there are hundreds of different systems being used to collect and analyze data, and many of these systems do not communicate with one another. This is the second challenge that the CDC must tackle: data modernization. A system must be established that allows for greater data exchange across multiple levels of government, including county-level data on the number of chronic conditions within each age cohort and the evaluation of the impacts on death rates due to critical infections. For better model predictions, real-time telemetry data must be included, such as population movements and social media. To predict future demands on hospital resources and particular pharmaceuticals, treatment strategies based on data available for various age cohorts must also be taken into consideration. Only when all partners communicate using a common data language can decisions regarding specific hazards to public health be made with sufficient knowledge.
To execute the CDC’s mission, the American public health system must operate as a single, synchronized ecosystem. Infrastructure must be put in place to connect the disparate systems currently used to drive data collection and analysis and facilitate its exchange across multiple levels of the government in a simple, secure, seamless way. The right data must be supplied to the right people at the right time to accomplish this.
