member spotlight

Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County is housed in the historic Reibold building

by Nancy Maddox, MPH, writer

With the decline of US heavy industry toward the late 20th Century, Ohio’ s manufacturing economy slowly morphed into a service economy, centered on healthcare, government, insurance and law. By 2011, HealthGrades ranked Dayton # 3 of 50 US cities for excellence in healthcare, a sector that now adds over $ 6 billion per year to local ledgers.

Yet Montgomery County innovates still. The new class of creative thinkers can be found at the Air Force Research Laboratory on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, at Emerson Climate Technologies’ Innovation Center, at the National Composite Center( which develops materials for roads and other transportation infrastructure); and at many other cutting-edge county businesses.

Overall, the 464-square-mile jurisdiction supports about 535,000 residents. It lies entirely within Ohio’ s undulating Miami Valley, with direct water access— via the Great Miami River, Ohio River and Erie Canal— to the Great Lakes to the north. About 60 miles south is the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky metropolitan area.

The local health agency, Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County( PHDMC), is based in Dayton, but also operates satellite clinics. Its laboratory predates PHDMC itself, having been established under the City of Dayton Clinic to support venereal disease testing in 1919— six years after a catastrophic Great Miami River flood that remains embedded in local lore.

In 2007, PHDMC expanded its suite of core public health services to include a refugee health screening program for immigrants coming largely from the Middle East and Africa. The health agency, with laboratory support, screens for communicable diseases and acute and chronic illnesses and connects these new residents with primary care providers.

In addition to its on-site analytical services, the laboratory oversees six CLIA-waived testing sites: three WIC clinics, two HIV outreach clinics and PHDMC’ s Addiction Services Clinic.

Facility

The 350-square-foot Montgomery County public health laboratory is on the fifth floor of the Reibold Building on downtown Dayton’ s Main Street. Constructed in 1896, the ornate, 11-story building originally housed the Elder & Johnston Department Store and business offices. Today, the historical landmark faces the Dayton Convention Center and houses PHDMC. An ongoing building renovation is expected to wrap up in late 2017, when the laboratory will move to a newly refurbished, 625-square-foot space two floors down.

Laboratory Coordinator

The laboratory’ s CLIA director is Thomas Herchline, MD, and it is managed day-to-day by Hyder Aljanabi, the laboratory coordinator. Aljanabi was born in Baghdad and moved with his family to Washington State in 1999. After completing high school, he returned to Baghdad for a few years before resettling in Dayton, Ohio, where he earned a biology degree from Wright State University. Aljanabi began working for PHDMC in 2010, analyzing pollen and mold slides at the laboratory on behalf of the department’ s Regional Air Pollution Control Agency. After just a year and a half, he was promoted to microbiologist. He served in that post for little more than two years, before advancing to fill a vacancy created when the former laboratory coordinator