We are in sunny Pasadena, California for the 2018 APHL Annual Meeting! Here is a little look at what we did on the first day. Stay tuned for updates every day through June 5. 2018 APHL Annual Meeting and Twelfth Government Environmental Laboratory Conference Join the conversation using #APHL on: Twitter Instagram Facebook...
The people who work in public health laboratories make a difference in your community daily. In this third episode, members of the Emerging Leader Program cohort 10 sit down with their peers to hear how their public health laboratory careers have made an impact. ELP cohort 10 members featured in this episode: Dana White has been working in the public health lab for 16 years and is now the state training coordinator at the Mississippi Public Health Lab . Dr.Ona Adair has been working in the publi...
Maybe the saying is true: you don’t know what you had until it is gone. For the families in this episode, the absence of public health laboratories turned their worlds upside down and negatively impacted both the present and future. These families represent us all and highlight the vulnerabilities that would exist if there were no public health laboratories working continuously to keep our communities and populations safe. This is the second episode in the series produced by members of the Emerg...
Public health laboratories do a great deal of work that impacts the daily lives of everyone in America. Do you know exactly how much they’re doing? The first episode produced by members of the Emerging Leader Program cohort 10 looks at some of the work performed by public health lab scientists. (*indicates ELP cohort 10 member) Water Quality Testing Interviewer: *Amanda Hughes, program manager of ambient air quality monitoring, State Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa Experts: Michael Schuel...
What is the Emerging Leader Program (ELP)? APHL staff, Pandora Ray and Kajari Shah, share how the ELP got its start and how it has progressed. This year's ELP cohort is producing three episodes for Lab Culture that will be released over the coming weeks. Stay tuned! APHL Emerging Leader Program
Every year on March 24, APHL recognizes World TB Day, a day to focus on the valuable work of our members and partners. While tuberculosis is often considered a disease of the past, it is resurging and presenting significant new public health challenges including drug resistance. This World TB Day, we are sharing an insightful conversation between two TB laboratory leaders: Dr. Marie-Claire Rowlinson, assistant laboratory director, Bureau of Public Health Laboratories, Florida Department of Healt...
In November, Scott Becker, APHL’s executive director, traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa for the second APHL International Team Meeting. While he was there, he sat down with five members of the APHL international team to discuss their work and what led them to pursue a career in laboratory science. The APHL International Team Meeting allows for US-based APHL leadership and global health program staff and consultants working in-country to discuss organizational operations and key programmatic...
The Biosafety Peer Network (aka the Visiting Biosafety Official Program) links US local, state, and territorial public health laboratories with US-affiliated Pacific Island laboratories to facilitate mentoring and information sharing among biosafety officials and officers. The exchange is intended to foster a collaborative community, advance biosafety and biosecurity in laboratories, and ultimately improve public health laboratory biosafety and biosecurity across the US. So what exactly does the...
Four years ago, as APHL joined with partners to celebrate the 50th anniversary of routine newborn screening in the United States, newborn screening hit more closely for APHL staff than it ever had before. Michelle Forman, manager of media and Lab Culture host, received a text that her new niece, Sloane, had a positive newborn screen. Her results were out of range for PKU. In this episode, Michelle interviews Sloane's mom, Judith Forman, about that experience. Newborn Screening Gets Personal: My ...
PulseNet revolutionized foodborne outbreak detection in the United States. What exactly is it? How did it get started? Why was it so significant? And what does the future of foodborne outbreak detection look like? Brian Sauders, molecular microbiologist at the NY State Department of Agriculture and Markets, and Shari Shea, director of food safety at APHL, answer these questions and more. Links: What is PulseNet? About PulseNet (CDC) PulseNet success stories 20 years of PulseNet: Preventing thous...
On March 6, a small group of APHL members and our policy staff visited House and Senate offices as part of our annual Hill Day. Peter Kyriacopoulos, APHL’s senior director of public policy, interviewed the group following their meetings to get their immediate thoughts. Links: ELC Program: Essential Funding for Public Health Lab Response Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity fact sheet APHL Advocacy Priorities Hill Day group: Chris Whelen – laboratory director, Hawaii Department of Health State La...
Did you know that the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare) includes critical public health funding? What would the repeal of the ACA mean for public health? Peter Kyriacopoulos, APHL’s senior director of public policy, talks about the CDC-managed Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases (ELC) program, a source of crosscutting support for public health laboratories funded under the ACA through the Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF). Links: ELC Program: Essential Fund...
