Welcome to the Division of Communicable Disease Control (DCDC)

The Division of Communicable Disease Control (DCDC) provides a key leadership role in California and the nation by evaluating and responding to new and re-emerging infectious disease threats. Each branch within the Division, working with local health departments, plays a vital part in the continuing battle to protect California’s citizens and visitors from the threats of infectious diseases.

About Dr. James P. Watt, Chief of the Division of Communicable Disease Control

DCDC Organizational Chart (PDF, New Window) 

About DCDC

Combating infectious diseases involves straightforward, non-controversial, science-based prevention and control efforts. Seven major DCDC activities respond to current challenges:

• Improve laboratory capacity and develop more accurate and efficient diagnostic methods for new bacterial, parasitic, viral and rickettsial diseases.
• Expand and enhance infectious disease surveillance, detection and tracking, including:
• automating and improving local and state reporting (through use of the Internet) of infectious diseases to assure timely and accurate assessment;
• working with agencies involved in food safety to implement a statewide microbiological monitoring program that will isolate, trace, and eliminate emerging pathogens in foods;
• developing electronic laboratory reporting to speed up response time to disease outbreaks.
• Improve the capacity and readiness at both state and local public health levels to assure disease crisis intervention to control outbreaks and prevent the spread of infectious diseases. DCDC experts must act as the epidemiological response team for emerging and re-emerging diseases at the regional level.
• Develop and improve systems, immunization registries and other links with private and public health care providers. Expand partnerships with health plans, sister agencies such as the California Department of Food and Agriculture and Department of Corrections, and agriculture-related businesses. These partnerships improve prevention activities, adopt best practice guidelines, and institute quality control measures to minimize the potential for deadly infectious agents to spread among the population.
• Using population-based methods and channels, inform, educate and communicate disease prevention information to health care providers, policy makers, and communities at risk of infectious diseases.
• Thoughtfully and effectively address the disparity in health status and the burdens of infectious disease in California’s ethnic, age and gender groups.

Branches and Programs

DCDC is a division of the California Department of Public Health, Center for Infectious Diseases. For complete information about the Division’s branches and programs, see: