The Centers of Excellence in Public Health Informatics: Improving Public Health through Innovation, Collaboration, Dissemination, and Translation

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Centers of Excellence in Public Health Informatics (CoE) program was established to advance the research and practice of public health informatics through several collaborative efforts (1). The CoE program supports the development, translation, and dissemination of informatics knowledge; and provides expertise to public health professionals to maximize the potential of information systems to improve the health of the nation. The Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services (OSELS) funds the Centers using a Program Project Grant (P01) with each Center leading two major research projects in collaboration with local public health partners (2). Five original Centers were funded in 2005 to serve as innovative incubators for transformational public health informatics research. A new competitive announcement was released in 2009 which resulted in awards to the four current Centers: Harvard Pilgrim Children’s Hospital Boston Center of Excellence, Rocky Mountain Center for Translational Research in Public Health Informatics, Indiana University Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics, and University of Pittsburgh Center for Advanced Studies of Informatics in Public Health.