Public Health
The public health system in Ohio is a partnership of healthcare professionals working together to protect the lives of Ohioans.
According to the Ohio Department of Health (ODH), today's public health professionals must cope with an ever-expanding group of newly recognized diseases like E-coli, cyclospora, cryptosporidium, Hanta virus, and Ebola. At the same time, illnesses once conquered through the use of antibiotics and other therapies are re-emerging as public health threats by becoming resistant to the very treatments once used to defeat them.
Our role as a laboratory is to report communicable disease results not only to the ordering healthcare provider, but also to the local health department as required by the Ohio Department of Health (ODH).
Healthcare providers also bear responsibility for reporting communicable diseases to their local health departments. To find your local health department, click here.
If you are in Montgomery County Ohio, visit Public Health -Dayton and Montgomery County at http://www.phdmc.org/.
The ODH maintains a list of reportable infectious diseases in Ohio and a timeframe for when they must be reported.
For more information about public health, emergency preparedness, and infectious diseases, visit the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) .