Public Health Laboratories

The Florida Department of Health’s Public Health Laboratories provides diagnostic screening, monitoring, reference, research, and emergency public health laboratory services to county health departments and other official agencies, physicians, hospitals, and private laboratories.

We protect public health from the hazards of improper performance of environmental laboratory tests through regulating environmental laboratories.

Our laboratories have the capability to conduct testing for rabies, HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia, hepatitis, syphilis, and others. We provide supporting data for the cause of food or waterborne outbreaks and check for more than 150 chemicals in clinical specimens, along with identifying anthrax, smallpox, and other agents in the event of bioterrorism. Florida’s public health laboratories are also on the forefront to detect drug resistant organisms such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and multiple drug resistant and extensively-drug resistant tuberculosis.

With headquarters at the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee, three laboratories (central laboratory in Jacksonville and branch laboratories in Miami and Tampa) service Florida’s 67 counties.

Laboratory Licenses

Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certificate review is available for each laboratory by utilizing each laboratory’s CLIA ID number:

Current certifications for Environmental Microbiology Water Laboratory

Environmental Laboratory Certification

We certify laboratories to use chemical and biological techniques in testing a wide variety of matrices, including drinking water, non-potable water, solid and chemical materials, biological tissue, and air. 

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