About Us

ODP's Mission and Vision

The Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) assesses, facilitates, and stimulates research in disease prevention and health promotion in collaboration with NIH and other public and private partners, and disseminates the results of this research to improve public health.

ODP works to create a society that utilizes evidence-based strategies to reduce the incidence of avoidable diseases and deaths, and increase healthy years of life.

Four Main Focus Areas

Research Coordination
The ODP facilitates research into disease prevention and health promotion at the NIH through the Prevention Research Coordinating Committee, in partnership with other Federal agencies, and through collaborations with other public and private partners.

Evidence Assessment
ODP operates the Consensus Development Program, which produces evidence-based consensus statements addressing controversial medical issues important to health care providers, patients, policy-makers, and the general public.

Training and Education
ODP coordinates a variety of training and education programs, including: Medicine: Mind the Gap, a lecture series on cutting-edge differences between current science and practice; Medicine in the Media, an annual training course for journalists, and the Robert S. Gordon, Jr. Lecture in Epidemiology, given each year by a prominent voice in prevention research.

Communications and Outreach
ODP responds to public inquiries and media requests about NIH programs focused on prevention research. The goal is to provide timely, accurate information about disease prevention and health promotion research and about ODP's programs to a wide variety of internal and external audiences.