CDC Foodborne Actions

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is part of the U.S Public Health Service, with a mission to use the best scientific information to monitor, investigate, control and prevent public health problems.
  • Using the tools of epidemiology and laboratory science, CDC provides scientific assessment of public health threats.
  • CDC works closely with state health departments to monitor the frequency of specific diseases and conducts national surveillance for them.
  • CDC provides expert epidemiologic and microbiologic consultation to health departments and other federal agencies on a variety of public health issues, including foodborne disease, and it stations epidemiologists in state health departments to help with the surveillance and investigation of many problems.
  • CDC can also send a team into the field to conduct emergency field investigations of large or unusual outbreaks, in collaboration with state public health officials.
  • CDC researchers develop new methods for identifying, characterizing and fingerprinting the microbes that cause disease.
  • We translate laboratory research into practical field methods that can be used by public health authorities in states and counties.
The CDC is not a regulatory agency. Government regulation of food safety is carried out by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).