The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a federal agency that aims to improve public health through efforts to control and prevent infections, chronic disease, injuries, workplace hazards, and other threats to health and safety. Not only does it monitor the outbreak of diseases, it also functions as a resource and educates the public on how to recognize and avoid common infectious diseases as well as other illnesses and injuries. The agency focuses on five crucial areas:
- Improving global health
- Decreasing leading causes of death
- Increasing support for health departments
- Reforming health policies
- Strengthening epidemiology and surveillance
The CDC has been in operation for more than 70 years and is managed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It partners with national, state, and local administrations to monitor and prevent outbreaks of disease, implement strategies for disease prevention, and sustain national statistics on health. These statistics on diseases and injuries are regarded as a leading source.
The CDC offers an extensive website that contains information for hundreds of diseases and other health-related conditions. The agency takes a thoughtful and thorough approach to its information; not only can people learn about prevention and treatment, they’ll also have access to information on symptoms and FAQs that provide more details.
One of the main goals of the CDC is to reduce injury by providing guidance on what people can do to stay safe. This guidance is especially applicable to the workplace. The CDC’s dedicated section for workplace safety is the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH’s vision is to bring about safer, healthier workers by developing new knowledge in the field of occupational safety and health, and putting that knowledge into practice. It mandates to assure every U.S. worker safe and healthful working conditions.
As an aspect of the CDC, NIOSH has three main goals:
- To advance workers’ well-being through research on reducing worker illness and injury. This involves tracking work-related illnesses, injuries, exposures, and hazards, as well as creating new knowledge and developing innovative solutions to eliminate them.
- To promote healthy and safe workers through capacity building, recommendations, and interventions. This is achieved by enhancing the use and relevance of established guidance or recommendations, and transferring research/information into practice. It addresses both traditional and emerging workplace hazards.
- To utilize global collaborations to enhance worker health and safety. The CDC shares its knowledge and best practices to provide strategies for reducing workplace illness and injury. To achieve this, it embraces a leadership role.
