Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Global Health Programs: FY2001-FY2012 Request

Tiaji Salaam-Blyther
Specialist in Global Health

A number of U.S. agencies and departments implement U.S. government global health efforts. Overall, U.S. global health assistance is not always coordinated. Exceptions to this include U.S. international responses to key infectious diseases; for example, U.S. programs to address HIV/AIDS through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), malaria through the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), and neglected tropical diseases through the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Program. Although several U.S. agencies and departments implement global health programs, this report focuses on funding for global health programs conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a key recipient of U.S. global health funding.

Congress appropriates funds to CDC for its global health efforts through five main budget lines: Global HIV/AIDS, Global Immunization, Global Disease Detection, Malaria, and Other Global Health. Although Congress provides funds for some of CDC’s global health efforts through the above-mentioned budget lines, CDC does not, in practice, treat its domestic and global programs separately. Instead, the same experts are mostly used in domestic and global responses to health issues. As such, CDC often leverages its resources in response to global requests for technical assistance in a number of areas that also have domestic components, such as outbreak response; prevention and control of injuries and chronic diseases; emergency assistance and disaster response; environmental health; reproductive health; and safe water, hygiene, and sanitation.

CDC also partners in programs for which it does not have specific appropriations, such as efforts to address international tuberculosis (TB) and respond to pandemic influenza globally. Congress does, however, appropriate funds to CDC to address these diseases domestically. In addition, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) transfer funds to CDC for its role as an implementing partner in U.S. coordinated initiatives, including PEPFAR, PMI, and the NTD Program.

From FY2001 to FY2011, Congress provided CDC roughly $3.5 billion for global health activities, including $330.2 million in FY2011. The President requested that in FY2012, Congress appropriate $358.6 million to CDC for global health programs—an estimated 5% increase over FY2010-enacted levels.

There is a growing consensus that U.S. global health assistance needs to become more efficient and effective. There is some debate, however, on the best strategies. This report explains the role CDC plays in U.S. global health assistance, highlights how much the agency has spent on global health efforts from FY2001 to FY2011, and discusses the FY2012 budget proposal for CDC’s global health programs. For more information on U.S. global health funding more broadly, see CRS Report R41851, U.S. Global Health Assistance: Background and Issues for the 112th Congress.


Date of Report: June 27, 2011
Number of Pages: 20
Order Number: R40239
Price: $29.95

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