Senators Reverend Warnock, Ossoff urged the relevant Senate Appropriations subcommittee, to fully fund the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for Fiscal Year 2025
Senators Reverend Warnock, Ossoff are requesting $118 million for programs and research being done by the CDC to support safe motherhood and infant health while combating the maternal mortality crisis
Senator Reverend Warnock: “With robust federal funding, CDC can continue its work to prepare for the next public health threat, respond to the mental health and opioid crisis, and support young people and families”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA) urged the relevant Senate Appropriations subcommittee to invest in our nation’s public health security by fully funding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
In a letter to the Chair and Ranking Members of the Subcommittee on Labor-HHS-Education on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senators Warnock and Ossoff requested $9.683 billion in funding for the CDC for the Fiscal Year 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill. The request includes $118 million for programs and research being done by the CDC to support safe motherhood and infant health while combating the maternal mortality crisis. The CDC champions several programs geared towards building the national infrastructure for maternal mortality prevention, including Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs), Perinatal Quality Collaboratives (PQCs), CDC Levels of Care Assessment Tool (LOCATe), and the Hear Her Campaign. Federal funding will support implementation of multi-level maternal mortality prevention activities in communities with a focus on individuals’ first postpartum year. Senator Warnock believes women deserve to have access to the right prepregnant and postpartum care at the right place and time to ensure healthy lives and healthy families.
“Thank you for your commitment to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the nation’s public health security. With robust federal funding, CDC can continue its work to prepare for the next public health threat, respond to the mental health and opioid crisis, and support young people and families. As you and your colleagues consider the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill, we respectfully request that you fully fund the CDC above the President’s budget of $9.683 billion,” Senators Warnock and Ossoff wrote.
Additionally, Senators Warnock and Ossoff are also requesting $506 million for opioid overdose prevention and research. Opioids are currently the main driver of drug overdose deaths in our country. Collecting robust data helps contextualize the toll that opioid use disorder takes on communities and better equip localities to respond to the crisis.
“This top-line request supports the three priorities outlined in the President’s Budget Request and championed by Director Mandy Cohen. The request includes funding that would bolster the Center for Forecasting and Analytics, increase access to primary care and vaccines for at-risk populations, improve maternal health, and continue advancing research to help end the opioid epidemic. Within the $9.683 billion request for FY 2025, we ask that you support, at a minimum, the following funding levels for these critical CDC initiatives…” the Senators continued.
The letter can be found HERE and text is below:
Dear Chairwoman Baldwin and Ranking Member Capito:
Thank you for your commitment to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the nation’s public health security. With robust federal funding, CDC can continue its work to prepare for the next public health threat, respond to the mental health and opioid crisis, and support young people and families. As you and your colleagues consider the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill, we respectfully request that you fully fund the CDC above the President’s budget of $9.683 billion.
This top-line request supports the three priorities outlined in the President’s Budget Request and championed by Director Mandy Cohen. The request includes funding that would bolster the Center for Forecasting and Analytics, increase access to primary care and vaccines for at-risk populations, improve maternal health, and continue advancing research to help end the opioid epidemic. Within the $9.683 billion request for FY 2025, we ask that you support, at a minimum, the following funding levels for these critical CDC initiatives:
1. Readiness and Response to Public Health Threats
$224.6 million Public Health Data Modernization
Increased funding will support CDC’s continued efforts to improve data collection and address remaining gaps in standardization and interoperability between stakeholders. Data collection and data sharing allows CDC to better respond to and address chronic and infectious diseases. CDC will continue to support technical assistance and deploy tools that enable health departments to improve efficiency and avoid duplicative costs.
$100 million for Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics
The Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA) has been integral in providing informed responses to various infectious disease outbreaks since its inception in 2021. Continued funding will allow CFA to prioritize Insight Net, established in 2023 as a nationwide outbreak analytics and disease modeling network, which allows for the quick development of open-source models to track future outbreaks. Models created through CFA will be critical to empowering state and local decision-makers during the next public health emergency.
$60 million for Response Ready Enterprise Data Integration (RREDI)
RREDI works in tandem with the modernized public health data infrastructure systems to allow for the transfer of public health data more easily. RREDI provides access to real time data for federal, state, and local, governments and the healthcare industry. This funding is critical to ensuring RREDI has the resources needed to maintain this network and improve responses by public health agencies.
$7 million for John R. Lewis Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program
The public health workforce is the backbone of our country’s public health system. Funding for programs, like the CDC John R. Lewis Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program (CUPS), gives opportunities to students who want to work in various public health settings like health departments, community-based organizations, and federal agencies. Without a workforce to implement the programs and strategies developed by CDC, we will continue facing increased risks from chronic and infectious diseases.
$100 million for Wastewater Surveillance
Building the nation’s wastewater surveillance apparatus is critical to detecting the next potential public health outbreak and to better understand health threats to our communities. Wastewater surveillance proved invaluable for public health departments in monitoring the spread of recent outbreaks including mpox and polio and is a novel approach to disease detection in the 21st century.
$293.2 million for Global Public Health Protection
As our primary defense health agency, CDC is tasked with being at the ready to combat credible biological threats, infectious disease outbreaks, and prevent the spread of global health emergencies to our shores. Like any other national security issue, emergent public health threats require the CDC to be on the ground to address health security gaps more rapidly.
2. Responding to Mental Health and Opioid Use Disorder
$943.379 million for Injury Prevention and Control
We are living through a mental health crisis in our country that affects children and adults alike. Funding for Injury Prevention and Control goes towards research and evaluating prevention strategies to implement what works, why it works, and for who. Executing meaningful strategies and translating them for the populations most at risk will save countless lives.
$506 million for Opioid Overdose Prevention and Surveillance
Opioids are currently the main driver of drug overdose deaths in our country. Collecting robust data helps contextualize the toll that opioid use disorder takes on communities and better equip localities to respond to the crisis.
3. Support Healthy Families
$118 million for Safe Motherhood and Infant Health
CDC champions several programs geared towards building the national infrastructure for maternal mortality prevention, including Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs), Perinatal Quality Collaboratives (PQCs), CDC Levels of Care Assessment Tool (LOCATe), and the Hear Her Campaign. Funding will support implementation of multi-level maternal mortality prevention activities in communities with a focus on individuals’ first postpartum year. Women deserve to have access to the right prepregnant and postpartum care at the right place and time to ensure healthy lives and healthy families.
$38.4 million for School Health Programs
CDC Healthy Schools supports states, districts, and schools in promoting student health through healthy eating and physical activity; increasing academic success; advancing physical and health education; and improving school health services and practices to address chronic conditions such as childhood obesity, diabetes and asthma for all K-12 students. Additional funding will allow CDC to fund 57 state, tribal and territorial education agencies to implement CDC’s Leadership Exchange for Adolescent Health Promotion (LEAHP) initiative. LEAHP supports state education and public health agency teams to assess state-level school health organizational policies and practices and develop and implement action plans of model school-based policies and practices that enhance youth mental and behavioral health. Our children are our future.
Vaccines for Children, Vaccines for Adults Programs
We recommend implementing the requested expansion to the Vaccines for Children Program (VFC) to include all children age 19 and under enrolled in CHIP. VFC is valuable in providing access to vaccinations for children who might not otherwise have access. Additionally, we urge the establishment of a new program modeled after VFC for adults, to help ensure affordable access to vaccines for uninsured Americans.
These programs represent just a small number of initiatives CDC leads every day that safeguard and improves the lives of people not just in Georgia, but across the country and the globe. While we recognize the fiscal climate presents its challenges, the cost of unmitigated public health crises is far greater than that of investments in prevention and response.
We appreciate your strong support for the CDC in past years and look forward to working with you to increase funding for critical, long-term investments in public health within the context of a responsible federal budget. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
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