Grant Administration: CDC Oversight of Grantees' Activities Needs Improvement

Highlights

Pursuant to congressional requests, GAO reviewed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) promotion of safer sex or condom use to control the spread of human immunodeficiency virus, focusing on CDC monitoring of community-based organizations' and national/regional minority organizations' use of federal funds to: (1) engage in prohibited lobbying; (2) advocate cultural, institutional, ideological, economic, or other causes; and (3) promote or encourage homosexuality or the illegal use of intravenous drugs.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention	To improve CDC oversight of AIDS-related materials, the Director, CDC, should require funded organizations to identify, as part of their periodic reporting requirements, the AIDS-related materials produced or distributed with federal funds.	Closed – Implemented CDC incorporated in grant award documents requirements that (1) a program review panel review and assess proposed AIDS-related materials, (2) grantees document in the project files a statement of the vote for approval or disapproval for each proposed item, and (3) grantees include in progress reports a signed statement by the panel chair of the results of the votes for each proposed item.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention	To improve CDC oversight of AIDS-related materials, the Director, CDC, should require program staff to periodically determine whether funded organizations have complied with the requirement to provide evidence of program panel reviews of AIDS-related material.	Closed – Implemented To improve internal coordination, CDC's grants office now forwards a copy of grantees' progress reports to CDC's program office for review and follow-up. Program office staff use the progress reports to determne if grantees are complying with the requirements to provide evidence of program panel reviews of AIDS-related materials.

Full Report

(24 pages)

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Topics

Health Care

AIDSCommunity health servicesGrant monitoringHealth care servicesLobbying activitiesMinoritiesNonprofit organizationsReporting requirementsDisease controlLobbying