Survey Overview
In 2000, the Healthy People 2010 Plan was released by the Department of Health and Human Services. Within that plan were 467 objectives organized into 28 focus areas. Focus area 23 addressed Public Health Infrastructure and a major section of that focus area encompassed the workforce. In twenty years of Healthy People planning this was the first plan that specifically acknowledged the unique role of public health laboratories.
To assure that public health laboratories are part of the workforce being assessed within Healthy People 2010, a specific objective was included. This objective, 23-13, reads as follows, “Increase the proportion of Tribal and State public health agencies that provide or assure comprehensive laboratory services to support essential public health services.” Since there was no identifiable data source to measure “comprehensive laboratory services to support essential public health services,” this objective was originally designated as a “developmental” objective. It became a permanent objective in December 2005.
In November 2004, APHL conducted the first Comprehensive Laboratory Services Survey (CLSS) of state public health laboratories to establish the baseline data necessary for the Healthy People 2010 Objective 23-13. Healthy People 2020 continues in this tradition with the launch on December 2, 2010 of its ambitious, yet achievable, 10-year agenda for improving the Nation’s health. Objective 23-13 was renamed to Public Health Infrastructure Objective 11 in Healthy People 2020.
The CLSS currently only addresses state public health laboratories and their respective state agencies and serves as a baseline to biannually evaluate the level of improvement in the provision of comprehensive laboratory services over the decade ending 2020. Work is being done to explore how APHL can modify the survey instrument to assess local and tribal public health laboratories.
Healthy People 2020 and Future Plans
APHL is strongly committed to continuing our Comprehensive Laboratory Services Survey to serve as the data source for this objective.
For more information contact, Tina Su, MPH, senior specialist, Laboratory Systems and Standards, 240.485.2729, bertina.su@aphl.org