cdc-places

The CDC PLACES MCP server provides programmatic access to modeled health statistics for US geographic areas, including states, DC, and major cities. It exposes data through the MCP protocol so clients can request model-based estimates for chronic disease risk factors, health outcomes, and clinical preventive service use. You can connect using standard MCP clients and specify the CDC PLACES data as the source for queries, enabling downstream analyses, dashboards, or integration with other health datasets.

To use the server, start it with the configured command and then interact with its endpoints using MCP-compatible requests. Typical workflows include querying geographic areas by FIPS or city identifiers, requesting time-series slices if supported, and filtering results by health indicators such as prevalence of chronic conditions or preventive service uptake. If the server provides metadata endpoints, you can retrieve available indicators, geographic coverage, and data legends to interpret results correctly. As a proof-of-concept, the data may be modeled estimates rather than exact observations, so treat outputs as indicative and suitable for exploratory analysis and prototyping.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (LTS recommended) installed on your system
• Basic familiarity with MCP clients and JSON-based requests

Installation steps:

1. Clone the repository or download the MCP server package/files to a working directory.
2. Ensure Node.js is installed. You can verify with: node -v npm -v
3. Install dependencies (if a package.json is provided). In the project directory, run: npm install
4. Start the MCP server: node server.js
5. The server should start and listen for MCP client connections on the configured port (default port in your code, often 3000 or 8080). If you modified configuration, ensure the port and host are accessible from your client.

If you prefer running via a Docker image or an npm package, adapt the commands to use your preferred container or package manager, ensuring the same entry point (server.js or equivalent) is executed.

Notes and tips:

• This MCP server is described as a proof-of-concept; treat outputs as provisional and suitable for experimentation.
• If you run into connectivity issues, verify that the server host/port are accessible from your MCP client, and check firewall or network restrictions.
• Check if there are environment-specific configuration options (e.g., data source URLs, cache settings, or rate limits) and set them via environment variables if supported by the server implementation.
• If the server relies on external datasets or APIs, ensure those services are reachable and that any required API keys or credentials are provided via environment variables.
• When updating the server, retest core MCP endpoints to confirm data formats and response schemas remain stable.