Health Security

The CSIS Global Health Policy Center’s work on health and security provides an in-depth analysis of this emerging complex interface between proliferating security threats and extensive global health demands

Health security encompasses many threats to U.S. national interests and the American people, from global outbreak and pandemic surveillance and response, to growing drug resistance, managing technological advances in gene editing, strengthening vaccine confidence, and assessing the impacts of conflict, natural disasters, and other humanitarian emergencies on health systems. The United States has articulated approaches through the Global Health Security Agenda, launched in 2015 with other nations, and the National Biodefense Strategy, last updated in 2022. However, there remains a need for a stronger, more coherent, better integrated, and more reliably financed U.S. approach to health security.
 
The CSIS Global Health Policy Center analyzes how U.S. policies and programs must be adapted and capacities strengthened, in both global health and international security, to advance U.S. national interests in the coming years. Topics explored include: contributions of the U.S. DOD to combat infectious disease; cultivating health security partnerships with governments in geopolitically significant regions; assessing the successes and sustainability of the Global Health Security Agenda; and tracking the epidemiological spread and policy response of the U.S. and key governments to the coronavirus pandemic.

Featured Projects

The CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security is our signature effort, convening an esteemed group of senior leaders and subject matter experts to advance a concrete, forward-leaning agenda for U.S. global health security strategy, focused on integration of effort, enhanced global coordination, and building new partnerships and alliances that advance U.S. diplomacy. The Alliance identifies options to strengthen core pandemic preparedness and response capabilities, while exploring the untapped opportunities to integrate capabilities across traditional infectious disease programming including on HIV/AIDS, routine immunization, and antimicrobial resistance, among other priorities. The two-year effort, running from spring 2023 through the end of 2024, is co-chaired by Senator Richard Burr, former Senator from North Carolina and immediate past Ranking Member on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and Dr. Julie Gerberding, CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From 2018-2022, the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security was our project to bridge political divides and build a U.S. doctrine of continuous prevention, protection, and resilience. We led a distinguished and diverse group of high-level opinion leaders from both the health and national security worlds, including members of Congress, officials from previous administrations, and leaders from industry, foundations, universities, and non-governmental organizations. The Commission charted a bold vision for the future of U.S. leadership in global health security—at home and abroad, a goal more necessary now than ever. The Commission convened experts privately and publicly to discuss these pressing challenges and produced briefs and reports outlining policies to best address them. In its final report, Ending the Cycle of Crisis and Complacency in U.S. Global Health Security (November 2019), the Commission articulated a robust, long-term approach to ensure continuous protection and resilience against health security threats. To learn more, visit the Commission’s website: https://healthsecurity.csis.org/.

Featured Project

Photo: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images

Pandemic Therapies

The last two and a half years of the global Covid-19 pandemic have witnessed unprecedented research and development collaboration that has resulted in the availability—in record time—of new vaccines.

View more about Pandemic Therapies

All Health Security Content

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A Quarter-Century of Disease Prevention Efforts at Risk

Not only does cutting support for national and global immunization programs threaten the U.S. measles elimination certification, it also limits economic growth, undermines the viability of U.S. trading partners, and imperils the health of children around the world.

Commentary by Katherine E. Bliss — April 2, 2025

The United States Needs to Step Up Its Response to Bird Flu

The United States continues to fall short in managing the threat of bird flu. Although the risk of widespread H5N1 human-to-human transmission currently appears low, enhanced response measures are needed to protect the health and national security of the United States.

Digital Report by Michaela Simoneau, Sophia Hirshfield, and Maclane Speer — December 19, 2024

Closing the Prevention Gap

The development of long-acting PrEP methods makes it a pivotal moment for the global HIV response. Transforming HIV prevention will depend on ensuring a comprehensive set of PrEP options are available, affordable, and acceptable to populations vulnerable to the virus.

Brief by Katherine E. Bliss — December 3, 2024

U.S. Response to Mpox in the DRC: Leveraging PEPFAR as a Global Health Security Asset

The U.S. has mobilized a multi-pronged response to the mpox outbreak in Africa, of which its global HIV program PEPFAR is a core element. Lessons from the response shed light on PEPFAR’s contributions to HIV and global health security and can inform policy debates about the program’s future.

Commentary by Alicia Carbaugh — October 28, 2024

The Quad’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative

The Quad’s new Cancer Moonshot Initiative to eliminate cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific can leverage the strengths of Quad members, create enduring capabilities, and potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Commentary by Erin L. Murphy, Katherine E. Bliss, and J. Stephen Morrison — October 22, 2024

Malaria Vaccines: The New Tools Fighting a Longtime Public Health Threat

New vaccines to prevent malaria infection promise to be game changers in the fight against this public health challenge. To ensure their impact, it will be critical to raise awareness about the new vaccines; ensure adequate financing; and support countries’ efforts to deliver the products to at-risk populations.

Digital Report by Katherine E. Bliss — October 18, 2024

Preventing HPV and Eliminating Cervical Cancer in the Americas

Improving equitable access to HPV prevention, testing and treatment; raising awareness about HPV vaccination; and building capacity around HPV screening will ensure access for young people in Latin America and the Caribbean to essential cancer prevention tools.

Commentary by Katherine E. Bliss — March 4, 2024

Bridging Health and Climate at COP28

The COP28 Health Day brought overdue attention to the complex intersection of climate change and global health and helped lay out a pathway for future diplomacy. Still, the real work remains. Public health and climate can no longer be treated as parallel issues.

Critical Questions by Maclane Speer and J. Stephen Morrison — January 26, 2024