Community Health Profiles Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Community Health Profiles Act requires HHS, through CDC, to establish within one year a four-year competitive pilot supporting no more than 25 neighborhood-level public health-data platforms. State or local health departments, municipalities, and counties may apply and may partner with academic or nonprofit institutions. Priority goes to applicants serving populations with health disparities, lacking an existing neighborhood data system, and planning to use data to reduce disparities.
Grant funds may build public dashboards covering social conditions, housing, maternal health, access to care, chronic disease, infectious disease, behavioral health, mortality, and other indicators. Platforms may integrate federal surveillance, administrative, education, housing, and public-safety data. They must identify sources and methods, offer visualizations and downloadable data, disaggregate below the municipal or county level, and submit standardized de-identified aggregate data to a national repository.
CDC must issue secure-reporting, privacy, confidentiality, comparability, and interoperability guidance; provide technical assistance; and support peer learning. It must establish a searchable National Neighborhood Health Data Repository with comparison, filtering, visualization, and download tools.
An independent expert panel must certify that the repository's aggregation methodology reflects scientific best practices and protects access, privacy, and comparability before it takes effect. GAO maintains a public nominee list and HHS appoints panel members from experts in epidemiology, statistics, surveillance, and privacy. HHS reports to Congress one year after the pilot begins on outcomes and whether to expand or extend it. Existing federal, state, and local privacy laws remain in force.
Who Benefits and How
Participating health departments and local governments receive funding and technical assistance to build data platforms. Residents in medically underserved, low-income, or environmentally burdened communities gain easier access to local health indicators. Public-health planners, community organizations, researchers, and service providers gain comparable downloadable data and visual tools. Academic or nonprofit partners can participate in implementation.
Who Bears the Burden and How
Grant recipients must integrate data, document methods, de-identify records, comply with privacy law, meet interoperability standards, and submit standardized data. CDC must run the competition, advise recipients, operate the repository, review submissions, enforce data standards, and report to Congress. Local data custodians must manage confidentiality and sharing rules. GAO and the expert panel receive nomination and methodology-review duties. Only 25 entities may receive awards.
Key Provisions
- Establishes the pilot within one year and limits it to 25 grantees.
- Prioritizes communities experiencing health disparities.
- Funds neighborhood dashboards, data integration, visualizations, and training.
- Requires standardized de-identified submissions to a national repository.
- Preserves all applicable privacy laws.
- Creates secure-reporting and interoperability guidance.
- Requires expert certification before the aggregation method takes effect.
- Reports to Congress after one year of operation.
- Terminates the pilot four years after establishment.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Creates a four-year CDC pilot awarding competitive grants to no more than 25 local or state entities for public neighborhood-level health-data platforms, coupled with a standardized national repository, privacy and interoperability requirements, technical assistance, an expert methodology panel, and a congressional evaluation.
Key Policy Areas
Public Health Data, Neighborhood Health Profiles, Health Disparities, Data Privacy, CDC Grant Programs
Primary Purpose
Creates a four-year CDC pilot awarding competitive grants to no more than 25 local or state entities for public neighborhood-level health-data platforms, coupled with a standardized national repository, privacy and interoperability requirements, technical assistance, an expert methodology panel, and a congressional evaluation.
Policy Domains
Section 2 community health-data pilot
Identified Gains
- Health departments receiving pilot grants
- Municipalities building neighborhood dashboards
- Counties lacking local health-data systems
- Residents of medically underserved communities
- Community organizations using downloadable health data
- Public-health researchers comparing neighborhoods
- Academic partners supporting local platforms
Identified Costs
- CDC pilot-grant administrators
- Grant recipients submitting standardized data
- Local health-data privacy officers
- National repository operations staff
- Independent methodology-panel members
- GAO advisory-panel nominee staff
- Applicants outside the 25-grantee cap
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Introduced in House
Mr. Torres of New York introduced the following bill; which …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Applicants outside the 25-grantee cap, Counties lacking local health-data systems, Local health-data privacy officers
Positive-direction: Counties lacking local health-data systems, Municipalities building neighborhood dashboards
Negative-direction: Applicants outside the 25-grantee cap, Local health-data privacy officers
CDC pilot-grant administrators, GAO advisory-panel nominee staff, National repository operations staff
Grant recipients submitting standardized data, Health departments receiving pilot grants
Independent methodology-panel members, Public-health researchers comparing neighborhoods
Positive-direction: Public-health researchers comparing neighborhoods
Negative-direction: Independent methodology-panel members
Residents of medically underserved communities
Community organizations using downloadable health data
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "partner"
- → Academic or nonprofit institution
- "administrator"
- → Secretary of Health and Human Services acting through CDC
- "eligible_entity"
- → State or local health department, municipality, or county
- "nominee_publisher"
- → Comptroller General of the United States
- "methodology_reviewer"
- → Independent advisory panel
Note: {'scope_ids': ['community_health_data_pilot'], 'description': 'The pilot is capped at 25 grantees and terminates after four years; it does not preempt privacy law, authorize public release of identifiable data, or permit the repository methodology to operate before independent certification.'}
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
An online tool, website, or dashboard presenting health data through visualizations, downloadable datasets, or summaries.
A difference in health outcomes or service access closely linked to social, economic, environmental, racial, ethnic, or other demographic factors.
A geographic focus below the municipality or county, such as a ZIP code, census tract, or community district.
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology