Association of Public Health Laboratories - Public Health Laboratories

Public Health Laboratories

Public health laboratories operate as a first line of defense to protect the public against diseases and other health hazards, ranging from testing of water, food, dairy and environmental products to investigation of newly emerging infectious diseases. Working in collaboration with other arms of the nation’s public health system, public health laboratories provide clinical diagnostic testing, disease surveillance, newborn screening, environmental and radiological testing, emergency response support, outbreak detection, applied research, laboratory training and other essential services to the communities they serve. Public health laboratory scientists are highly educated specialists with knowledge of one or more scientific disciplines, advanced skills in laboratory practice and the ability to apply this expertise to the detection and solution of complex problems affecting human health.

Every US state and territory, and the District of Columbia, has a central governmental public health laboratory that performs testing and other laboratory services on behalf of the entire jurisdiction. In addition, some states have local public health laboratories ranging in size from large metropolitan laboratories with over a hundred scientists to small rural laboratories with one or two staff that support local public health. Examples of testing performed by public health laboratories include testing drinking and recreational water, food safety testing, testing for lead exposure in children, screening newborns for genetic and metabolic disorders, rabies testing and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

Many state public health laboratories also perform environmental testing. In some states, the environmental and public health laboratory are the same laboratory and are often within the state health department. In other states, the environmental laboratory is separate from the public health lab and is part of the department of environmental quality or natural resources while the public health laboratory is part of the health department.

Similarly, testing for food safety may take place in the public health laboratory or in a food lab within the department of agriculture. With global food sourcing, each year sees new outbreaks take headlines (e.g., E. coli in lettuce, Salmonella in peanut butter), and the laboratory is a critical link in the chain of detection that helps to quickly identify the source of the outbreak and facilitate recall of unsafe consumable products.

No matter where the laboratory is housed, one common feature among all of them is the commitment of laboratory personnel to keeping the environment safe and protecting public health.