National Center for Environmental Health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a sub-agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, funds public health research, disease surveillance, prevention programs, and emergency response initiatives through grants and cooperative agreements with state health departments, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations.

CDC has obligated $1.04 billion in federal grant funding across 301 awards since 2009, with activity concentrated among state health department recipients. Over the last five years, CDC awarded 43 grants in 2021, 37 in 2022, 3 in 2023, 36 in 2024, and 3 so far in 2025. The most recent grant award closed in late September 2025. Grant recipient concentration is highly fragmented; the top five recipients by award count hold 19 percent of recent awards, and the top five by federal dollars hold only 8 percent of recent federal dollars obligated. State health departments dominate the recipient base—Minnesota Department of Health, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, State of Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Florida Department of Health, and Arizona Department of Health Services each received three awards in the recent window, with Wisconsin holding the largest federal share at $18.8 million. The remaining 97 recipients across the portfolio include academic medical centers, research universities, and specialty public health organizations, reflecting a diverse and distributed funding strategy.

CDC's grant portfolio is heavily weighted toward Cooperative Agreements, which account for 296 of 301 awards (98 percent), with the remaining 5 awards structured as Project Grants. This assistance-type distribution reflects CDC's operational model of partnering with state and local health agencies on ongoing disease control and prevention work rather than funding discrete research projects. The portfolio's 102 distinct grant recipients and the low concentration coverage at the top indicate a broad base of state and organizational engagement across CDC's disease surveillance, prevention, and emergency preparedness missions.