What if there were no public health labs?

Lab Culture

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 Emerging Leader Program cohort 10.

Emerging Infectious Disease Response:

APHL’s Infectious Disease Program

Laboratory Response Network (LRN)

Interviewer: Kate Wainwright, PhD, D(ABMM), HCLD (ABB), MPH, MSN, RN, deputy director, Public Health Protection and Laboratory Services, Indiana State Department of Health

Expert: Peter Shult, PhD, director, Communicable Disease Division; associate director, Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Newborn Screening:

APHL’s Newborn Screening Program

NewSTEPs

Baby’s First Test

Interviewer: Josh Rowland, MBA, MT(ASCP), manager, Training and Workforce Development, Association of Public Health Laboratories

Expert: Miriam Schachter, PhD, research scientist 3, New Jersey Department of Health, Newborn Screening Laboratory

Foodborne Illness:

APHL’s Food Safety Program

5 Things You Didn’t Know (but Need to Know) About Listeria

Interviewer: Samir Patel, PhD, FCCM, (D)ABMM, clinical microbiologist, Public Health Ontario; Toronto, Canada

Expert: Vanessa Allen, MD, MPH, medical microbiologist, chief of microbiology, Public Health Ontario; Toronto, Canada

Narrator: Erin Bowles, B.S., MT(ASCP), Wisconsin Clinical Laboratory Network coordinator and co-biosafety officer, Communicable Disease Division, Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Contributor: Emily Travanty, PhD, scientific director, Laboratory Services Division, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Special thanks to Jim Hermanson at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene for his help in recording this episode.