CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service: Training Disease Detectives
The CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) is a competitive, two-year postdoctoral training program that places officers at the front lines of public health investigations across the United States and internationally. Established in 1951 by CDC founder Alexander Langmuir, the program has trained more than 4,000 officers across its history (CDC EIS Program). This page covers the program's structure, how officers are deployed, the types of investigations they conduct, and how EIS assignments differ from other CDC workforce roles.
Definition and scope
The Epidemic Intelligence Service functions as an applied epidemiology training program housed within the CDC's Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services. EIS officers are physicians, veterinarians, doctoral scientists, and other health professionals who accept a 2-year service commitment in exchange for supervised field training in outbreak detection and response.
The program was designed explicitly as a "disease detective" corps — a term Langmuir used to describe officers capable of rapidly deploying to investigate unknown health threats. The scope spans infectious disease, chronic disease, injury, environmental hazards, and occupational health. Officers are assigned to CDC Atlanta, state and local health departments, federal agencies, and international postings coordinated through CDC global health operations.
Approximately 80 new officers enter the EIS program each year (CDC EIS Program Overview). During their service, each officer is expected to author peer-reviewed publications, present findings at the annual EIS Conference, and complete at least one major field investigation.
How it works
EIS training follows a structured sequence:
- Orientation and didactic coursework — Officers spend the first weeks in Atlanta completing intensive instruction in epidemiologic methods, biostatistics, and CDC data systems including the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS).
- Primary assignment — Each officer is placed with a supervising epidemiologist at a CDC program office, state health department, or partner agency for the core two years of service.
- Field deployments — Officers are called to outbreak investigations as needed, sometimes within 24 hours of notification. These deployments can last days to weeks depending on investigation complexity.
- Annual EIS Conference — Each April, officers present their investigation findings to a peer audience of public health professionals. Abstracts and presentations are archived through CDC.
- Mentored publication — Officers are expected to submit at least one first-authored manuscript to the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) or a peer-reviewed journal during their tenure.
Funding for EIS salaries comes through CDC appropriations. Officers hold federal appointments, typically at the GS-11 to GS-13 level depending on qualifications, meaning they are salaried federal employees — not fellows or volunteers — during their 2-year term.
Common scenarios
EIS officers have been deployed across a broad range of investigation types since the program's founding. Representative categories include:
Outbreak response — Officers investigate clusters of reportable disease, foodborne illness, and novel pathogens. The CDC outbreak investigation process draws heavily on EIS-trained personnel for rapid case-finding, hypothesis generation, and analytic epidemiology.
Vaccine-preventable disease surveillance — Officers support CDC vaccination programs by monitoring breakthrough infections, adverse event clusters, and immunization coverage gaps.
Environmental and occupational events — When industrial accidents or environmental exposures generate apparent health clusters, EIS officers embedded in state health departments coordinate with CDC environmental health programs and CDC occupational safety and health divisions to characterize exposure and health outcomes.
Global deployment — Officers are seconded to the World Health Organization (WHO) and country ministries of health for outbreak investigations outside U.S. borders, particularly in countries with fragile surveillance infrastructure.
Chronic disease and injury — Not all EIS work involves infectious disease. Officers have investigated opioid overdose clusters (intersecting with CDC opioid crisis response), suicide contagion, and disparities in chronic disease burden across demographic groups.
Decision boundaries
The EIS program occupies a specific and bounded role within the broader CDC workforce — a distinction that matters for understanding when EIS officers lead an investigation versus when other structures take precedence.
EIS vs. Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activation — EIS officers typically conduct field investigations during the early characterization phase of an event. When an outbreak meets the threshold for a formal public health emergency, the CDC public health emergency response framework activates the EOC, and EIS officers become contributors within a larger incident command structure rather than lead investigators.
EIS vs. Career epidemiologist roles — EIS is explicitly a training program. Upon completing the 2-year term, officers transition to permanent positions in federal, state, local, or international public health agencies. Career epidemiologists without EIS training fill the majority of CDC's standing surveillance positions, documented in CDC workforce development planning.
Jurisdiction limits — EIS officers deployed to state health departments operate under state authority and cannot compel cooperation from local entities independently. Their investigative powers are shaped by the host agency's legal authority, not federal jurisdiction alone. The legal framework governing CDC's broader intervention authority is addressed under CDC authority and legal powers.
Scope of training versus operational capacity — Because only approximately 80 officers enter per class, EIS cannot staff every outbreak simultaneously. Prioritization decisions are made by CDC program offices in coordination with CDC state and local partnerships, directing EIS resources to events with the highest epidemiologic complexity or public health impact.
The full landscape of CDC disease detection infrastructure, within which EIS sits, is described across cdcauthority.com.