The Public Health Programs at the Wadsworth Center protect the health of New Yorkers through rapid and accurate identification of genetic diseases, infectious agents and environmental threats. Health is promoted by these programs through the development of new, more sensitive and rapid diagnostic tests.

The Public Health Programs work with many other institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Inorganic Analytical Chemistry Laboratory performs biomonitoring of chemical threat agents and is a Level 1 Laboratory for the Laboratory Response Network (LRN)-C_[1]. The Infectious Disease Laboratories comprise one of ten laboratories in the CDC’s Emerging Infections Program for surveillance and improvement of capacity.

The Public Health Programs serve as a resource in many ways, from educating other laboratorians and students to providing a fungal culture collection repository of several thousand specimens for instance.