Federal Health Agencies
This cabinet‑level agency is the most important federal organization for health and human services.
What is DHHS?
This level of government has the primary constitutional responsibility for citizens’ health.
What are the states?
This federal department was created after 9/11 and consolidated 22 agencies.
What is DHS (Department of Homeland Security)?
Who defined public health in 1920 as “the science and art of preventing disease…”?
Who is Charles Winslow?
Vaccines, health education, and smoking cessation programs are examples of this level of prevention.
What is primary prevention?
This agency is the nation’s lead organization for outbreak response, including Ebola, Zika, and COVID‑19.
What is the CDC?
Local health departments provide most direct services. Name one such service.
What are immunizations, TB treatment, environmental surveillance, school inspections, nutrition services, etc.?
FEMA is part of this federal department.
What is DHS?
This epidemiologist linked cholera to a contaminated water pump on Broad Street.
Who is Dr. John Snow?
Screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies represent this type of prevention.
What is secondary prevention?
This agency oversees prescription and OTC drugs, biologics, medical devices, and food labeling.
What is the FDA?
These official reports, produced by the CDC, summarize national disease prevalence based on state reporting.
What is the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report)?
This unified framework outlines national principles for disaster and emergency response across agencies and sectors.
What is the National Response Framework (NRF)?
These three components make up the epidemiologic triangle.
What are host, agent, and environment?
Rehabilitation, disease management, and limiting disease progression reflect this level.
What is tertiary prevention?
This federal agency is responsible for improving access to healthcare for uninsured and medically vulnerable populations.
What is HRSA?
State health departments license these professionals. Name one.
Who are physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, chiropractors, optometrists, veterinarians?
This standardized system, used by emergency responders and public health, manages command and coordination during crises.
What is the Incident Command System (ICS)?
This 1988 report identified three core functions of public health: assessment, policy development, and assurance.
What is The Future of Public Health (IOM, 1988)?
This newest prevention category seeks to avoid unnecessary or ineffective medical interventions.
What is quaternary prevention?
This agency conducts biomedical research and houses 27 institutes, contributing to discoveries such as the MRI and virus‑cancer links.
What is the NIH?
This council determines which diseases should be reportable to the CDC.
What is CSTE (Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists)?
This cycle—planning, organizing, training, equipping, evaluating—is the official definition of public health preparedness.
What is the DHS/FEMA preparedness cycle?
This form of surveillance focuses on early detection of unusual disease patterns due to human intervention.
What is biosurveillance?
Public health focuses primarily on which two prevention levels?
What are primary and secondary prevention?