Matthew Whittle

In SEANC’s third installment of our series on public health, we are taking a look at the State Laboratory of Public Health.

Often overlooked when considering the roles state employees play in keeping North Carolina healthy, it is, as Laboratory Director Dr. Scott Zimmerman said, the only area of public health that truly impacts the life of every person in North Carolina.

From testing drinking water, as well as air and soil samples for contaminates, to monitoring the state for communicable disease outbreaks, to cervical cancer screenings, to newborn screenings, the State Laboratory of Public Health is often in the background of people’s day-to-day lives. But without it residents would likely be less healthy and actions taken by the state and local governments to combat health concerns would likely be more costly.

Among the areas the lab focuses on are the environmental sciences, cervical cancer screenings, newborn screenings, communicable and infectious diseases, and chemical and bioterrorism.

At its core, Zimmerman said, the state lab is focused on providing policymakers and public managers with factual, data-based information to help make decisions.

“The nature of the lab is to provide data to public health professionals and public officials so evidence-based decisions can be made,” he said. “We do it with facts, we do it with data, rather than just sticking our finger up in the air and saying ‘We think this.’”

For example, he said, when there appears to be a foodborne disease outbreak, it is the state lab’s responsibility to determine what the bug is and where it is coming from so the appropriate local officials can respond and “quickly slow and eliminate the spread of that disease.”

He also explained that the lab is responsible for large-scale screening efforts, such as when children may have been exposed to lead. In those instances, not only is the lab responsible for testing the children, but also all the environmental samples to find out where the lead originated.

“Without us the response from public officials would be less efficient and more of a scattershot approach. Such a multi-prong approach wouldn’t be as effective and would be inefficient and wasteful,” he said. “We save the system money. We allow the focus to be narrow and the response to be specific.”

The state lab, along with others around the country, also fills a variety of important niches in the world of laboratory testing.

For example, he said, state labs, including North Carolina’s, were the first in 2009 to detect the new strain of flu coming out of Mexico.

Similarly, the North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health is part a nationwide Laboratory Response Network, working with the FBI to combat chemical and bioterrorism – testing white powders and other suspicious substances and helping to determine responses to various emergency situations.

But identifying and tracking diseases and dealing with potential terror threats are not all the state lab does. It also focuses on testing air, soil and water quality, particularly for those water systems that rely on wells. It helps provide cervical cancer screenings for low-income, at-risk women.

And, in one of its more widespread efforts, it also provides newborn screenings to every baby born in North Carolina.

“These newborn screenings are very unique to the state lab,” Zimmerman said.

These screenings, which occur with 24 to 48 hours of a child being born, focus on testing for more than 30 different genetic disorders, including cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia and more. And each year, he said, of the 120,000 to 125,000 children born in North Carolina, about 2,500 have some sort of disorder.

“But the vast majority, with medical intervention, dietary intervention, those children have the chance to lead long, prosperous lives,” he said. “We improve their quality of life. It’s a vital program.”

So while the nearly 235 people who work at the primary lab in Raleigh – new in January 2013 – and in the smaller satellite labs in Charlotte and Greenville are often behind the scenes, the work they do resonates throughout the state.

“We really do touch the lives of every citizen in North Carolina,” Zimmerman said.

This is third in SEANC’s series on public health in April, in honor of Public Health Week, which was April 7-13.