Fall 2002 Issue
A Conversation with Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, Director of CDC
“Public health is at a tipping point. We’ve never had more challenges, but we’ve never had more opportunities. As the new leader of CDC, I am absolutely committed to making this the most innovative, exciting and impactful organization possible.” - Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, CDC director.
Julie L. Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H., is the newly appointed director of CDC and administrator for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). An infectious disease expert, Gerberding played a major role in leading CDC’s response to the anthrax bioterrorism attacks last fall. She was named director of CDC in July 2002.
Gerberding, 47, the first female to lead CDC, was previously acting principal deputy director of CDC. She also served as acting deputy director of CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases. She joined CDC in 1998 as director of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, where she developed CDC’s patient safety initiatives and other programs to prevent infections, antimicrobial resistance and medical errors in health care settings.
Q: What is the biggest challenge you face in your new role?
My overriding challenge is to identify CDC’s organizational priorities in the context of an urgent public health imperative: to ensure that the public health system is fully prepared to detect and respond to terrorism attacks. At the same time, there is the critical long-term challenge of ensuring that the backbone of public health programs affecting the day-to-day lives of Americans is protected and enhanced.
The times in which we live present unique challenges that we must prepare to address. For example, right now our nation’s demographics are changing dramatically. Our population is aging. There is an obesity epidemic. Our racial and ethnic diversity is growing. These create new challenges for the public health system, because we must provide relevant services that meet the needs of all people. The economic downturn certainly has an affect on health care and the delivery of preventive services. We must make a stronger case for establishing prevention and preventive health care services as a high priority.
Q: What opportunities most excite you?
This is a time of enormous opportunity for CDC. Through Health and Human Services (HHS) funding, we’re making unprecedented investments in local and state public health systems. Internally, we’re also making substantial investments to help shore up some of our labs, surveillance systems and other assets. These investments are not only important in terms of terrorism preparedness – they also support our overall public health mission.
There are exciting things going on right now in public health. Certainly, genomics (the study of mapping the human genome) is going to have a profound impact on the public health practice of the future. Through genomics, we can understand the genetic basis for health problems, and how the environment, microbes and lifestyle issues interact with health outcomes, in a much more robust, real-time way than we ever imagined would be possible a decade ago.
Q: What are CDC’s top organizational priorities?
We have three organizational priorities: excellence in science, excellence in service and excellence in organizational systems that support these activities.
Excellence in science is creating credible, peer-reviewed internally and externally, public health research and demonstration programs that provide the evidence base for all of our policy, programs and practices. Excellence in service means providing “gold standard” people-centric services that meet the needs not only of our partners and stakeholders, but also the needs of the general public – the people – whose health decisions may be influenced by the resources we can provide. And for Excellence in systems initially, I’m focusing on what “excellence in systems” means to CDC internally, which means investing in career development and identifying the skills and the needs of the next generation of public health personnel at CDC. I’m also focused on improving horizontal integration across the various centers and institutes at CDC/ATSDR, as well as CDC’s vertical integration within HHS.
Q: In what ways can the CDC Foundation enhance the impact of CDC?
I know that the CDC Foundation’s model is to help us do more, faster. In a sense, I view the CDC Foundation as a “venture capitalist” that helps us identify new opportunities. The CDC Foundation offers CDC so much support and flexibility, and has brought us into contact with experts and visionaries who have helped shape our agenda. Additionally, the CDC Foundation is helping us launch pilot projects and programs that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. If these programs seem worthwhile, which many of them have proven to be, we’re in a much better position to leverage that experience for funding in the long run.