 since states organize their governmental public health systems in diverse ways the relative roles of local and state health departments will vary in states where governance is centralized responsibility for conducting outbreak investigations rests primarily with state health departments conversely in jurisdictions where governance is decentralized home rule states this responsibility may rest primarily with the local health department what are the general roles and responsibilities of various agencies during an outbreak since states organize their governmental public health systems in diverse ways the relative roles of local and state health departments will vary in states where governance is centralized responsibility for conducting outbreak investigations rests primarily with state health departments conversely in jurisdictions where governance is decentralized home rule states this responsibility may rest primarily with the local health department what individual roles should the outbreak response team consist of and what are their responsibilities since states organize their governmental public health systems in diverse ways the relative roles of local and state health departments will vary in states where governance is centralized responsibility for conducting outbreak investigations rests primarily with state health departments conversely in jurisdictions where governance is decentralized home rule states this responsibility may rest primarily with the local health department what equipment supplies documents toolkits and other resources should a response team have 