This CDC notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) seeks to enhance the nation’s ability to rapidly mobilize, surge, and respond to a public health emergency (PHE) identified by CDC. This NOFO is intended to establish a new roster of approved but unfunded (ABU) public health departments that may receive rapid funding by CDC to respond to a PHE of such magnitude, complexity, or significance that they would have an overwhelming impact upon, and exceed resources available to, the jurisdictions. CDC will use this ABU list for emergencies that require federal support to effectively respond to, manage, and address identified public health threats.

Upon occurrence of a particular PHE, CDC can rapidly fund specific applicants to accelerate public health crisis response activities such as coordinating emergency operations, hire surge staffing, and conduct needs assessments to determine the resources needed to address the specific public health crisis. The NOFO also provides funding for specialized public health emergency response activities tailored to the particular public health crisis.

The eligible applicants to receive funding are limited to governmental public health departments that are constitutionally empowered to protect the health and welfare of their respective communities. Eligible applicants must have functional public health emergency management programs, legal authority, and already existing public health emergency management capacity, thus they are pre-positioned to act expeditiously to meet the requirements of this cooperative agreement.