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Objectives. To assess Healthy People 2010 Objective 23-13 and its related sub-objectives measuring comprehensive laboratory services in support of essential public health programs, the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to create and administer a survey of state public health laboratories (PHLs). Methods. A committee of APHL, with representation from CDC, constructed the survey based on the 11 Core Functions of State Public Health Laboratories (hereafter Core Functions)-the premise being that the extent to which they fulfilled these Core Functions would represent their level of providing or assuring comprehensive laboratory services in support of public health. The survey was distributed biennially to all state health agencies from 2004 to 2008, and respondents were given two months to complete it. Results. The response rate for all surveys was ⩾90.2%. State PHLs were more likely to meet the sub-objectives relating to traditional functions (e.g., disease surveillance and reference testing) than other areas (e.g., food safety and environmental testing). Emergency preparedness fell in between. Overall, but most notably in the areas of food safety and training and education, there was improvement from 2006 to 2008, with the percentage of respondents who met more than half of the sub-objectives increasing from 58.7% in 2006 to 61 .2% in 2008. Conclusions. The comprehensive laboratory services survey has been a valuable tool in measuring the laboratory infrastructure that underpins public health in the U.S. It will be necessary to continue monitoring laboratory infrastructure in this way to determine where the gaps in services exist and how they can best be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the development since 2000 of the State Public Health Laboratory System in the United States. These state systems collectively are related to several other recent public health laboratory (PHL) initiatives. The first is the Core Functions and Capabilities of State Public Health Laboratories, a white paper that defined the basic responsibilities of the state PHL. Another is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Laboratory System (NLS) initiative; the goal of which is to promote public-private collaboration to assure quality laboratory services and public health surveillance. To enhance the realization of the NLS, the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) launched in 2004 a State Public Health Laboratory System Improvement Program. In the same year, APHL developed a Comprehensive Laboratory Services Survey, a tool to measure improvement through the decade to assure that essential PHL services are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]