How to Cite the CDC in APA

This article was co-authored by Cara Barker, MA. Cara Barker is an Assistant Professor and Research and Instruction Librarian at Hunter Library at Western Carolina University. She received her Masters in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Washington in 2014. She has over 16 years of experience working with libraries across the United States.

This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources.

This article has been viewed 225,263 times.

The American Psychological Association (APA) is the governing body who creates the rules and guidelines for formatting papers and documenting sources for people in certain fields – mostly sciences, education, and psychology. If you want to cite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in APA format, you’ll need to include the organization’s name either in your introduction to the quote, or in the parenthetical citation itself, along with the date. You must include more information in the very first citation.

List the full name of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, followed by a period. Include the year of publication in parentheses, followed by a period. Provide the title of the web page in sentence case capitalization, followed by "Retrieved from" and the URL of the page.

Sample Citations

Creating a Citation for Your Reference List

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017).
• If you are citing more than one document from the CDC published in the same year, distinguish them by putting a letter after the year. For instance, you could have "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017a)." and "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017b)."

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). Family health and diabetes. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/famhistory/famhist_diabetes.htm
• There should not be a period at the end of the citation after the URL.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). Family Health and

• In this case, your CDC citation will probably be situated toward the beginning of your References list because C is an early letter in the alphabet.
• Any reference beginning with letters D or later will appear after your CDC citation.

Creating the First In-Text Citation

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Over 30 million people have diabetes” (2017, para. 3).

• Certain studies have shown that “Over 30 million people have diabetes” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2017, para. 3).

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Over 30 million people have diabetes” (CDC, 2017, para. 3).
• You should include the publication year in an in-text citation even after paraphrased material, not just direct quotes.
• Be sure to differentiate documents published in the same year by adding a letter after the year. For example, your in-text citations could read "(CDC, 2017a)" and "(CDC, 2017b)."

• (CDC, 2017, para. 3).

Generating Subsequent In-Text Citations

• Studies done by the CDC have shown that “over 30 million people have diabetes” (2017, para. 3).

• Studies have shown that “over 30 million people have diabetes” (CDC, 2017, para. 3).

• According to the CDC, “over 30 million people have diabetes” (CDC, 2017, para. 3).

Community Q&A

Government Report Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ( 2014). . First citation: (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014). Subsequent citations: (CDC, 2014). First citation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], (2014). Subsequent citations: CDC (2014).

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I am doing an in-text citation from the national institute on deafness and other communication disorders. I used two different online publications, how do I differentiate the two in my paper?

In your in-text citations, only the author and year should be cited. If those happen to be the same, that is okay. In the reference list, including all required fields should differentiate the two, as the authors, titles, publication years, or even URL will likely be different.

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If you find a report or article on the CDC website that is attributed to a certain author, rather than the CDC itself, cite that as an online article instead. Usually, the CDC will provide a sample citation.

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1. ↑https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/citations/commonsources
2. ↑https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/05/alphabetization-in-apa-style.html
3. ↑https://libguides.regiscollege.edu/c.php?g=977470&p=7067582
4. ↑http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/citations/commonsources
5. ↑https://guides.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/APA/govdocsonline
6. ↑https://guides.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/APA/govdocsonline
7. ↑http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/citations/commonsources
8. ↑https://guides.himmelfarb.gwu.edu/APA/govdocsonline
9. ↑https://guides.centralpenn.edu/APA7th/intext

About This Article

This article was co-authored by Cara Barker, MA. Cara Barker is an Assistant Professor and Research and Instruction Librarian at Hunter Library at Western Carolina University. She received her Masters in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Washington in 2014. She has over 16 years of experience working with libraries across the United States. This article has been viewed 225,263 times.

To cite the CDC or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in APA format on your Reference page, write out its full name followed by a period and then the year of the publication date in parentheses followed by another period. For example, “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017).” After that, list the title of your source and the URL of the CDC website page you’re quoting from. You don’t need to include a period after the URL. Remember to alphabetize entries on your Reference page! If you want to cite the CDC in your text, write the full name of the CDC along with its abbreviation in parentheses, the year of publication for the quoted material, and then the paragraph number. For example, you could write, “(CDC, 2017, para. 3). For more information, including how to use proper hanging indentation in your Reference list, read on!

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