Public health laboratory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Public Health Laboratories (PHL) operate as a first line of defense to protect against diseases and other health hazards. Working in collaboration with other arms of the nation’s public health system, public health laboratories provide diagnostic testing, disease surveillance, applied research, laboratory training and other essential services to the communities they serve. Senior laboratory professionals 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 solution of complex problems affecting human health.
Contents |
[edit] Capabilities
- Monitors communities for pathogens that spread in food or through contact with people or animals.
- Performs almost all testing to detect and monitor newly emerging infectious diseases like West Nile virus, SARS and Avian Influenza.
- Tests drinking and some recreational water for bacteria, parasites, pesticides and other harmful substances.
- Rapidly identifies suspect agents, as in 2001 when public health laboratories tested over 1,200 specimens a day during the 2001 anthrax attacks, ultimately conducting over one million laboratory analyses.
[edit] Public Health Laboratory Infrastructure
Public health laboratories are a critical foundation for the public heal delivery system, reaching every facet of its infrastructure. As providers of essential services and leadership to support and strengthen programs that protect health, state public health laboratories offer the solid science need to support informed public health decisions.
All sectors of the public health infrastructure – disease control and prevention, maternal and child health, environmental health, epidemiology, emergency preparedness and response – are critically linked to the state and national public health laboratory system. Public health laboratories provide early warning signals of health risks, compile data to solve outbreak investigations, and identify disease causes to aid in treatment and prevention. This leadership through science and through service promotes health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, birth defects, disability and death resulting from interactions between people and their environment.
[edit] Core Functions
There are eleven core functions common to the state public health laboratory system. Public health laboratories accomplish the following core functions are part of their organizational capacity:
- Disease Prevention, Control and Surveillance
- Integrated Data Management
- Reference and Specialized Testing
- Environmental Health and Protection
- Food Safety
- Laboratory Improvement and Regulation
- Policy Development
- Emergency Response
- Public Health Related Research
- Training and Education
- Partnerships and Communication
Non-core functions, such as veterinary testing, forensic capabilities, or toxicology, are dependent on the individual needs of the state.
While these functions represent uniform capabilities across the country, not all states invest these functions equally among their laboratories. Some states, for example, do not provide specific testing services, but instead enlist these services from anther state laboratory or a private laboratory.
State public health laboratories are part of a national network of public and private laboratories, linked in the shared goal of control or elimination of disease and interacting with laboratory service provides through-out the community.
[edit] Challenges to Public Health Laboratories
As new public health challenges arise, the effectiveness of the public health system’s response will, at least in part, depend on the efficacy of the state public health laboratory system. It is evident that the advent of new diseases and outbreaks – HIV/AIDS, legionella, Lyme disease, drug-resistant communicable disease agents, genetic disorders, E. coli 0157:H7, environmental exposures – presents a tremendous challenge to the public health system, and particularly to state public health laboratories.
[edit] See also
Association of Public Health Laboratories
Laboratories
