State and local public health
In June 2016, Layden was appointed state epidemiologist and chief medical officer (CMO) for the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), where she served until January 2020. [1] Her responsibilities included directing outbreak responses, overseeing disease surveillance efforts, and providing scientific and clinical leadership for the state. [1] During her tenure, she managed public health responses to outbreaks of EVALI, Hepatitis A, and measles. [1]
In January 2020, Layden became the deputy commissioner and CMO for the Chicago Department of Public Health. [1] She was the incident manager for the city's COVID-19 response. [2] [1] At the start of the pandemic, she addressed data management challenges, as many healthcare facilities were reporting cases via fax and Microsoft Excel files. [2] [1] To streamline this process, Layden authored a public health order that defined essential data elements for COVID-19 and mandated their electronic submission in standard formats. [2] In collaboration with Rush University Medical Center, her department established a cloud-based hub to receive this data electronically. [2] She also led the creation of the city's first "Datahub," a platform designed to enable automated electronic data submission from healthcare providers and laboratories. [1] Layden left this position in September 2020. [2] [1]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Layden joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in September 2020, initially in the Office of Science to help lead the agency's COVID-19 response. [2] [3] Shortly after her arrival, she co-led a vaccine task force that oversaw COVID-19 vaccine data and contributed to clinical guidance decisions. [3] [1] Her deployment with the task force lasted from June to October 2021. [1]
Layden held leadership roles at the agency, including associate deputy director to the deputy director for public health science and surveillance from December 2020 to November 2022. [1] She was named acting director of the newly established Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology (OPHDST) in November 2022 and was formally appointed director in August 2023. [1]
As director, she led the CDC's Data Modernization Initiative (DMI), which was established in 2019 to address the nation's underfunded and antiquated public health data systems. [2] [1] These systems were often characterized by siloed databases and a reliance on outdated methods like faxes. [2] Layden described public health data funding as following a "boom-and-bust pattern," where funding increases during a crisis and disappears after the threat subsides. [2] She also highlighted how disease-specific funding has led to fragmented data collection, citing an analysis that found jurisdictions had to report data for 11 notifiable diseases to multiple systems. [2] A key component of her work was a plan known as HTI-2, or Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability. [1] She identified sustained funding as the most significant obstacle to modernizing the public health data infrastructure. [2]
On August 27, 2025, it was reported that Layden was departing the CDC after approximately five years with the agency. [3]
