The agency now known as the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded on July 1, 1946, as the Communicable Disease Center, the successor to the World War II Malaria Control in War Areas program. Atlanta, Georgia was chosen as its home because malaria was endemic across the southern United States, and the new agency's first offices sat on the sixth floor of the Volunteer Building on Peachtree Street; in its founding year, 59 percent of its personnel worked in mosquito abatement and habitat control aimed at controlling and eradicating malaria within the country. Under the leadership of Joseph Walter Mountin, the agency pushed steadily to extend its responsibilities from malaria alone to communicable disease broadly, the expansion that produced the CDC as it is known today. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Milestone YearSourced to the subject's own account Milestone DateSourced to the subject's own account LocationSourced to the subject's own accountAtlanta, Georgia, United States 1 Classification
Type/ClassificationSourced to the subject's own account FAQs
Why was the CDC headquartered in Atlanta rather than Washington, D.C.?
Atlanta was chosen because malaria was endemic in the U.S. South, and the agency grew directly out of the wartime Malaria Control in War Areas program based there.
The agency, founded on 1 July 1946 as the Communicable Disease Center, was based in Atlanta, Georgia, because malaria was endemic across the southern United States at the time, and its original mission grew directly out of the wartime Malaria Control in War Areas program, which had operated in that region. In its founding year, 59 percent of its personnel worked in mosquito abatement and habitat control.
How did the CDC grow beyond its original focus on malaria?
Joseph Walter Mountin pushed it beyond malaria, and it absorbed venereal disease control in 1957, tuberculosis control in 1960 and an immunization program in 1963.
Under the leadership of Joseph Walter Mountin, the agency pushed to extend its responsibilities from malaria alone to communicable disease more broadly. Its scope widened further when the Venereal Disease Division transferred to it in 1957, followed by tuberculosis control in 1960 and an immunization program established in 1963, the expansion that turned a single-disease malaria agency into the multi-disciplinary public health agency known today as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Source Wikipedia: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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1. Wikipedia: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
WikipediaEstablishment section
The Communicable Disease Center was founded July 1, 1946
Establishment section, on Joseph Mountin's leadership
the CDC continued to be an advocate for public health issues and pushed to extend its responsibilities to many other communicable diseases
History, Establishment section
The Communicable Disease Center was founded July 1, 1946, as the successor to the World War II Malaria Control in War Areas program of the Office of National Defense Malaria Control Activities.
Program classification, entity description sentence
The agency now known as the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded on July 1, 1946, as the Communicable Disease Center, the successor to the World War II Malaria Control in War Areas program.
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