CDC is reorganizing to improve its ability to respond to new and emerging public health challenges such as the aging population's health needs; the U.S. obesity epidemic; improving policy and programs addressing health promotion and prevention of disease, injury, and disability; and developing a public health workforce and infrastructure to respond to infectious, occupational, environmental, and terrorist threats.
The CDC's first level of organizational change is transitional and will be developed over the coming months, including four new Coordinating Centers:
- Coordinating Center for Infectious Disease
- Coordinating Center for Health Promotion
- Coordinating Center for Environmental Health, Injury Prevention, and Occupational Health
- Coordinating Center for Public Health Information Services
Other Offices include the Office of Global Health and the Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response. Coordinating Center Directors will report directly to Dr. Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
NCHPAD currently resides within the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD), which will become part of the Coordinating Center for Health Promotion. NCBDDD has been involved in a strategic process to identify priorities of its mission within the framework of research and programming (i.e., scientific-based interventions). Broad goals include 1) environmental barriers to key preventive services, health promotion activities, health care for people with disabilities, and mechanisms for surpassing them, 2) emergency preparedness for people with disabilities, and 3) toxic environmental exposures that can disrupt child development.
Read more at http://www.ncpad.org/684/3055/2004-11-01#4.