CDC’s total FY 2012 budget request plus the funding needed for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is $11.3 billion. Of this amount, $753 million would be available from the $1 billion allotted to the Prevention and Public Health Fund or referred to as the “Prevention Fund”. This would help CDC build on prior investments in public health infrastructure, help community and state prevention efforts, and to set up programs to try to prevent smoking and obesity.
CDC is asking for $1.2 billion to address their “Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion” program of which $460 million would be funded through the Prevention Fund. The budget redirects $705 million for a new competitive grant program to refocus activities from disease-specific programs into a program that is more comprehensive in its approach. Since many chronic disease conditions share common risk factors, the new program would be better able to coordinate interventions to reduce chronic diseases.
CDC would award grants to:
• Health departments to implement evidence-based strategies to address the leading causes of death and health disparities
• Academic health centers to develop, test, and evaluate effective interventions to reduce chronic conditions
• National organization to provide technical assistance, training, and support to health departments
• States will receive performance awards if they significantly improve health outcomes
To meet the needs of the agency, the budget eliminated duplicative community grant programs and the “Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grants” because CDC will address these activities through the new Prevention Fund and through Community Transformation Grants.
The “Community Transformation Grant” program was launched in FY 2010, and is a Recovery Act initiative put in place with $650 million. Of that amount, CDC awarded $373 million to 44 communities to reach over 50 million Americans to implement evidence-based prevention and wellness strategies.
The budget includes $494 million, which is $53 million above FY 2010 to improve public health surveillance and infrastructure. This increase includes a decrease for the genomics program and includes increases for the public health workforce, and for the healthcare surveillance and statistics programs.
As for the health surveillance and statistics program, CDC requests $197 million which is an increase of $38 million over FY 2010. The funding for the program would be used to obtain and use statistics to understand health problems, recognize emerging trends, identify risk factors, support electronic birth records in all 50 states, guide programs and policy, and monitor the impact of health reform.
CDC’s Environmental Health programs budget request includes $138 million with $9 million in the Prevention Fund to finance a portion of the Environmental Public Health Tracking Program.
The Budget request for preparedness and responding to terrorism is $1.45 billion for biodefense and emergency preparedness activities which is a decrease of $70 million below FY 2010. Within that total, $643 million is requested for Public Health and Emergency Preparedness Grants. These grants support local preparedness efforts and the grant program is coordinates their efforts with the Hospital Preparedness Grants administered by the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.
