Organizational Mission/Goals
To promote the role of public health laboratories in support of national and global health objectives, and to promote policies and programs which assure continuous improvement in the quality of laboratory practice.
About APHL
APHL works to safeguard the public's health by strengthening public health laboratories in the United States and across the world. In collaboration with members, APHL advances laboratory systems and practices, and promotes policies that support healthy communities. The association's founding members are directors of state and territorial public health laboratories. Others include state laboratory staff, city, and county laboratory directors, and international representatives. APHL is a non-profit, 501(C3) organization with a history of over fifty years.
APHL’s Environmental Health Program seeks to expand the role of the laboratory in general environmental health, while improving the use of laboratory information in guarding against environmental threats. The program works to enhance communications between the regulatory and health protection sectors to optimize use of scarce resources in protecting public health from chemical and microbial contaminants in the environment.
Partnership Activities with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Biomonitoring–the direct measurement of chemicals in human specimens such as blood and urine–is a powerful tool that is essential for closing gaps in exposure data. CDC and its partners, including APHL, are supporting state and local agencies to build their tracking and biomonitoring capacity.
APHL is committed to building better linkages between the public health laboratory community and the environmental health community. The association will also pursue the long-term goal of building a repository of exposure information for use with health outcome data and genetic testing to improve the understanding of the impact of environmental chemical exposure on human health. In addition, APHL plans to promote and expand its Environmental Health Traineeship and Fellowship Programs.
APHL is working to transfer biomonitoring technology from CDC to the states. APHL created a document identifying how states would implement biomonitoring programs, and is educating policy makers on the need to fund biomonitoring.
To learn more about APHL’s role in EPHT, visit:
http://aphl.org/programs/environmental_health/.
[external link]
Contact Information
Jennifer Liebreich, MPH
Director of Environmental Health
Association of Public Health Laboratories
2025 M Street, NW, Suite 550
Washington, DC 20036-3320
Phone: 202-822-5227 x236
Fax: 202-887-5098
jliebreich@aphl.org
http://www.aphl.org/
[external link]
Lauren DiSano, MPH
Environmental Health Program Manager
Association of Public Health Laboratories
2025 M Street, NW, Suite 550
Washington, DC 20036-3320
Phone: 202-822-5227 x204
Fax: 202-887-5098
ldisano@aphl.org
