County Of San Diego

County of San Diego Public Health Services Division, a public health agency within San Diego County government, operates as a prime recipient of federal grants and a prime contractor on purchase orders for public health laboratory operations, infectious disease control, and biological threat detection services — serving federal agencies on a full-and-open basis with no set-aside designations across its federal award footprint.

Public Health Services operates as a division of San Diego County Auditor, a U.S. local government entity headquartered in San Diego, California. The division's federal work concentrates on two capability lines: laboratory operations and disease control services. On the contracting side, Public Health Services holds firm fixed-price purchase orders from the Department of Homeland Security's Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for technical and management support of the BioWatch program — a federal biological threat detection initiative. Recent contract awards include a $100 thousand FEMA order for BioWatch laboratory operations support at Washington, DC (September 2026, completion September 2027); a $90 thousand DHS CWMD order for BioWatch technical support in Palm Desert, California (September 2025, completion August 2026); and a $100 thousand DHS CWMD order for BioWatch laboratory support (September 2024, completion September 2025). Public Health Services also holds a $402.3 thousand firm fixed-price purchase order from CDC Pittsburgh for shared space and support services at its San Diego facility, including phone lines, computer infrastructure, technical support, building services, security, and janitorial support for CDC staff and county personnel collaboration at the US/Mexico Unit and San Diego Quarantine Station. This award was justified under FAR 6.302-1(a)(2) as a sole-source procurement, citing San Diego County as the only known provider of federally-owned space meeting collaborative requirements. A prior $225.9 thousand CDC Atlanta purchase order for shared services completed in August 2025.

On the grant side, Public Health Services operates as prime recipient of CDC cooperative agreements and project grants focused on tuberculosis elimination, public health infrastructure modernization, chronic disease prevention, and HIV/AIDS services. The current TB elimination cooperative agreement from the National Center for HIV/AIDS (awarded January 2025, completion December 2029) funds diagnosis, treatment, contact investigation, and latent TB infection testing for underserved populations in San Diego County, which reported 243 active TB cases in 2023 — a 17 percent increase from the prior year and higher than state and national rates. A project grant from the Healthcare Systems Bureau (awarded September 2024, completion September 2027) supports construction and equipment for a new 52 thousand square-foot Public Health Laboratory at the County Operations Center, including laboratory instrumentation, beach water-testing equipment, and IT infrastructure. Additional grants include a Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health cooperative agreement (September 2023, completion September 2028) and a Public Health Workforce and Infrastructure Modernization project grant from CDC's Center for Surveillance (December 2022, completion November 2027) that strengthens workforce planning, retention, training, and organizational systems. Public Health Services also received a Special Projects of National Significance grant from the HIV/AIDS Bureau for minority HIV/AIDS services (September 2023, completion November 2026).

Federal customer concentration sits with CDC and DHS. The top five customer agencies by award count account for 59 percent of recent awards, led by CDC core programs and CDC Pittsburgh (9 awards each, $1.1 million combined potential value) and DHS CWMD (9 awards, $562 thousand combined potential value). By potential value, CDC Pittsburgh dominates at $1.1 million across nine awards, followed by Health Resources and Services Administration's Hansen's Disease Program at $745 thousand. Recent activity shows growth from two awards in 2022 to nine in 2025, with two awards in the first nine months of 2026. Seven awards reaching ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $502 thousand and will face recompete or renewal.

Public Health Services acts as a sub-recipient under California Department of Public Health grants for vaccine-preventable disease prevention and immunization programs (multiple fiscal-year awards, including September 2026, 2025, and 2024 cycles) and under University of California, San Diego subawards for public health data analytics and forecasting capacity ($355.4 thousand, September 2025; $262.5 thousand base with $274.3 thousand modification, March 2028). Additional grant sub-awards include Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists funding for one-health zoonotic disease surveillance and highly pathogenic avian influenza detection (July 2025) and Association of Public Health Laboratories funding for electronic laboratory reporting of Laboratory Response Network biological threat agents (October 2024). The division also received sub-awards from HHS Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program administered through CDPH for core and support services to low-income people living with HIV (April 2024).

Combined potential value across all 69 awards — 58 prime, 11 sub — stands at $2.8 million, though obligated dollars total $831.8 million, indicating substantial historical obligation against current-year potential values. Top NAICS categories include Testing Laboratories and Services (12 awards) and Other General Government Support (9 awards); top PSC categories are Special Studies/Analysis — Other (9 awards) and Support — Professional — Other (6 awards).