LAB MATTERS
COLUMNS
Informatics
24 Building a Digital Bridge
2 President’s Message
3 Executive Director’s Message
25 AIMS Portal Solutions in Action: More
Than Just Data Exchange
SECTIONS
Fall 2017 Issue 4
Institutional Research
Environmental Health
4
5
fall 2017 | contents
25 I Want You!...To Add Your Lab’s Data to
the PLSD
Marine Biotoxins: A Snapshot of
Public Health Laboratory Testing
Capabilities
26 Data Dive: Informatics Self-
Assessment Tool Results
Developing New Lab Methods to
Assess Chemical Exposure in New
Hampshire
Policy
27 When Newborn Screening Meets
Policy: Nebraska’s Path to Adding
Disorders
Partner Profile
12 15 Minutes with Patrick Breysse
Newborn Screening
From the Bench
28 Looking at the Newborn Screening
“Big Picture” in the Big Easy
14 Leveraging Lab Capacity Toward
Regional Health Concerns in the
Four Corners
16 Iowa’s State Hygienic Laboratory
Tackles Radioanalytical Challenges for
Lead-210
17 Tennessee Tracks Prevalence of
Trichomonas vaginalis and Mycoplasma
genitalium Infections
20 Curriculum Upgrade Comes to
Laboratory Medicine at the
University of Sierra Leone
Member Spotlight
34 Supporting Public Health in Growing
King County
21 Improved Sample Transport System
Increases Access to Viral Load Testing
23 PHLs and AMD: A Technology Match
in Atlanta and Nationwide
31 Giving Your Data Its Due: A Few
Pointers for Conference Speakers
32 Nebraska Public Health Laboratory: A
Horse of A Different Color
Global Health
22 Building Lab Capacity in Africa: The
Democratic Republic of Congo
30 Identifying the Missing Link for BSOs:
Leadership
Communications
18 From the Great Lakes to Lake Victoria:
Strengthening Microbiology in Uganda
Infectious Diseases
Public Health Preparedness
and Response
Fellows
36 APHL Initiates New Classes of
Laboratory Fellows
Digital Extra
Biomonitoring
Protecting Communities from Chemicals of Concern
Inside:
24 Building a Digital Bridge
28 Looking at the Newborn Screening “Big Picture” in the Big Easy
30 Identifying the Missing Link for BSOs: Leadership
ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH LABORATORIES
6 FEATURE ARTICLE
Protecting
Communities
from Chemicals of Concern
In the 1970s, the National Health
and Nutrition Examination Survey
showed that gasoline lead was a
major exposure for children and
adults—a huge finding that would not
have been known otherwise. Today
NHANES provides a critical baseline
for national background levels of
exposure to other chemicals, but
state efforts to test and document
local, possibly elevated, exposures
to the new “alphabet soup” of
PFOAs and PFOSs have been little
funded and lagging. Public health
laboratories aim to change that.
37 Tools You Can Use
Download the Lab Matters App!
Read articles on your mobile device through
the customized Lab Matters app and
subscribe to the digital edition by emailing
[email protected].
8515 Georgia Avenue, Suite 700
Silver Spring, MD 20910
Phone: 240.485.2745
Fax: 240.485.2700
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.aphl.org
PublicHealthLabs
This publication was supported by Cooperative Agreement #5NU60OE000103, #NU60OE000103,
#U2GGH001097, #1U50OE000094-01 and #NU2GGH001993 funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC); by Cooperative Agreement #U22MC24078, UG5MC27837 and #UG9MC30369 funded by
the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); by Cooperative Agreement #1U18FD004710 and
#1U18FD006244 funded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and by Assistance Agreement #83483301
funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the au-
thors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC, HRSA, FDA, EPA or the Department of Health
and Human Services.
To submit an article for consideration, contact Gynene Sullivan, editor, at [email protected].
@APHL
APHL.org
Summer 2017 LAB MATTERS
1