| 30 |
38.1 |
Index |
1.2.24 |
1.0 |
HSS |
Health Security Surveillance |
2.0 |
BMLT |
Biological Monitoring & Laboratory Testing |
The ability of agencies to conduct rapid and accurate laboratory tests to identify biological, chemical, and radiological agents to address actual or potential exposure to all hazards, focusing on testing human and animal clinical specimens. Support functions include discovery through: active and passive surveillance (both pre- and post-event), characterization, confirmatory testing data, reporting investigative support, ongoing situational awareness. Laboratory quality systems are maintained through external quality assurance and proficiency testing. |
M911 |
State public health laboratory provides or assures testing for soil |
Soil testing is an essential component of environmental monitoring. |
APHL CLSS |
Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). Comprehensive Laboratory Services Survey (CLSS). 2012 & 2014. Additional details about this measure are available from the source. Data have been compiled by APHL biennially since 2004. The CLSS covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. State-level data are not available to the public but can be accessed by public health laboratory directors, among others. Data were obtained directly from the source. |
2012, 2014, & 2016 |
The state public health laboratory testing “provide or assure” standard is based on national consensus expert opinion and is recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and is reflected in the Healthy People 2020 goals concerning access to comprehensive public health and environmental health laboratory testing. This standard requires the state public health authority, through its laboratory, engage in the testing and reporting process – either by directly performing the tests or by assuring that alternative labs perform the tests adequately. This standard is designed to ensure that laboratory testing, interpretation, and reporting is guided by specialized public health knowledge and expertise found within the state public health agency, and that timely, effective public health responses and protective actions occur based on test results. States that provide testing through another type of laboratory, with no assurance role performed by the public health laboratory, do not meet this standard. (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2846798/). Inclusion of this measure ensures that the Index is consistent with national expert opinion and federal recommendations concerning comprehensive public health laboratory testing capabilities. However, the measure does not assess the quality of the testing, the timeliness of results reporting to enable responses to public health threats, nor whether sufficient capacity exists to test the volume of samples required during a health security event. Selected responses from the 2016 survey have been corrected for North Carolina and therefore no longer correspond to the originally published survey results. |