Public Health Division

The Public Health Division's mission is to improve the length and quality of life for all North Dakotans. To accomplish our mission, we focus on six goals including two cross-cutting goals that help guide our work division-wide. These cross-cutting principles are to Improve Health Equity and Use Evidence-based Practices to Make Data-Driven Decisions.

Key Functions

The Public Health Division aligns each of our functions to these four goals:

The Public Health Division comprises five sections:

• Disease Control & Forensic Pathology – Supports disease prevention, surveillance, and identification as well as epidemiologic investigation and forensic examinations.
• Healthy & Safe Communities (HSC) – Provides support for individuals, families, and communities by providing quality programs that protect and enhance the health and safety of all North Dakotans.​​​​​​​​​​
• Health Response & Licensure – Leads the planning and coordination of the public health and medical response as well as the implementation of regulation programs that protect the health and safety of North Dakotans, including ensuring North Dakota’s inpatient care facilities, outpatient programs, and staff-provided-services meet relevant health care standards.
• Laboratory Services – Provides rapid, accurate detection and identification of organisms that may threaten the public’s health.
• Health Statistics & Performance – Coordinates epidemiological studies, investigations, and surveillance activities; conducts data analysis; manages the registration and certification of vital events in ND and provides expertise and consultation on disease surveillance, data acquisition, database management, quality improvement, and health intervention activities.