About Public Health Labs

Every US state and territory, as well as the District of Columbia, has a central public health laboratory that performs testing and other laboratory services on behalf of the entire jurisdiction. In addition, most states have local public health laboratories, ranging in size from large metropolitan laboratories with hundreds of scientists to small rural laboratories with one or two staff, that support local public health activities like sexually transmitted disease control, drinking water testing, and lead abatement.

State and large local public health laboratories frequently perform tests that are unavailable elsewhere. At the state level, public health laboratories help formulate public policies, develop new methods to detect and combat infectious disease and environmental pollutants and toxins, regulate private medical and environmental laboratories and perform other essential services to protect residents’ health and well-being. At the federal level, state public health laboratories are an important part of a national network of laboratories that support response to national emergencies and incidents involving food, disease, environment, and agriculture.

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, providing analytical testing support for numerous state programs including drinking water, wastewater, solid waste, air quality, etc. 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. However, one common feature within these laboratories is the commitment of laboratory personnel to keeping the environment safe and protecting public health.

A simple definition of an environmental laboratory might be: A laboratory that analyzes environmental samples such as air, water and soil for microbiological and chemical contamination of both public and environmental health concern. The environmental laboratory can be traced to the original mission of laboratories associated with municipal water and wastewater treatment plants: To ensure that drinking water provided to citizens was free of disease-causing microorganisms and to test waste water effluent for contamination that may degrade the quality of the waterway into which the effluent is discharged.

Over the last 35 years as the health effects of environmental degradation have became more evident, the environmental laboratory has shifted its focus to macro-pollutants. Initially analytical techniques for these macro-pollutants were moderately selective and sensitive. Over time, as environmental quality improved, techniques became increasingly selective, sensitive and sophisticated. In some states, state environmental laboratories and scientists evaluating the health effects from environmental exposures to trace environmental pollutants collaborated to form biomonitoring and environmental health tracking programs.

In summary, when health risks emerge or re-emerge, laboratories in public health analyze the threat, provide the answers needed to mount an effective response and act to protect the public in collaboration with other decision makers.  Unlike private medical laboratories that perform tests to diagnose illnesses and conditions afflicting individual patients, public health laboratories safeguard entire communities. In one way or another, their work affects the life of every American

For example, laboratories in public health:

• Screen 97% of the babies born in the US for potentially life-threatening metabolic and genetic disorders.

• Monitor communities for pathogens that spread in food or through contact with people or animals.

• Perform almost all testing to detect and monitor newly emerging infectious diseases like West Nile virus, SARS and avian influenza.

• Test drinking and some recreational water for bacteria, parasites, pesticides and other harmful substances.

• Rapidly identify suspect agents, as in 2001 when APHL member laboratories tested over 1,200 specimens a day during the anthrax attacks, ultimately conducting over one million laboratory analyses.