Sponsor
Ritchie Torres
Representative · D-NY
Representative · D-NY
The bill channels federal funds and technical support to build neighborhood-level public health data systems that improve local planning and equity, but it raises privacy risks, administrative burdens for small jurisdictions, and ongoing local and federal costs that must be managed.
State and local health departments and municipalities receive federal grant funding and technical assistance to build neighborhood-level public health data platforms within 1 year, improving local planning, outbreak response, and service targeting.
Communities with health disparities—especially low-income and racial/ethnic minority neighborhoods—are prioritized for funding and platform development, helping target interventions and reduce health inequities.
Residents, researchers, and policymakers gain access to publicly downloadable, visualized neighborhood-level data through local platforms and a national repository, supporting community health planning, advocacy, and research.
Residents in small-area populations (including people with chronic conditions and some racial/ethnic minorities) may face privacy risks from collecting and sharing neighborhood-level health indicators, because de-identification can sometimes be re-identifiable for small groups.
Grantees and local governments could incur ongoing maintenance, integration, and staffing costs after the grant period ends, shifting financial burden to taxpayers or forcing platforms to lapse.
Smaller and rural health departments with limited IT capacity may face significant administrative and technical burdens to meet standardization and federal reporting requirements.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes a CDC pilot grant program to fund neighborhood-level public health data platforms that submit de-identified aggregate data to a national repository.
Creates a CDC-run competitive pilot grant program to fund up to 25 state or local health departments, municipalities, or counties to build or improve neighborhood-level, publicly accessible health data platforms that feed de-identified, aggregated information to a new National Neighborhood Health Data Repository. Grants focus on jurisdictions with health disparities or lacking local data systems and fund platform development, privacy protections, technical assistance, and data integration across health, social, housing, education, and public safety sources.The platforms must provide neighborhood/ZIP/census-tract disaggregation, visualizations, downloadable datasets, source citations and methodology, and support cross-jurisdiction comparability while complying with privacy laws; the program must be established within one year of enactment.
Official title: To establish a pilot program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support local jurisdictions in developing neighborhood-level, publicly accessible health data platforms, to establish a National Neighborhood Health Data Repository, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 25, 2026 by Ritchie Torres · Last progress February 25, 2026