Association of Public Health Laboratories Launches New Webpage on Meeting Community Health Needs

The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) has been following up on their 2012 Strategic Forum (in which ASDWA participated), where they brought together community partners and environmental health colleagues to identify strategies to better address community health concerns by utilizing the capabilities of public health laboratories.  Some of the key recommendations included better explaining who the public health laboratories are, what they are capable of testing, and what information do they have that could help answer community environmental health questions.
APHL is now presenting their new webpage: Meeting Community Health Needs!  Their hope is that community advocacy and consumer groups will use this web-based tool to improve their access to environmental health laboratories.  The site contains information about a project entitled, Meeting Community Health Needs through Environmental Health Labs, a YouTube video introducing public health laboratories, goals for the future and more.  The site also hosts a discussion board where anyone can post questions about environmental health concerns which may be addressed through laboratory testing.   To access the Discussion Board, you need to log into APHL’s SharePoint site as an individual.  If you have not used our SharePoint tool, you will need sign up for an account:

• Visit www.aphl.org and click on ‘Create an Account’ (upper right).
• Email EH@aphl.orgto let us know which email address you used and we’ll make you a Discussion Board participant.
• If you have difficulty accessing the site or Discussion Board, please email admin.sp@aphl.orgfor assistance.