The San Francisco Public Health Laboratory is a CLIA-certified diagnostic testing laboratory that provides infectious disease laboratory testing to over fifty submitters in San Francisco and laboratories across the State of California for diagnostic and public health purposes.  The laboratory is part of the Disease Prevention and Control Branch of the Population Health Division of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.  The types of testing that we perform range from diagnostic testing of patient specimens to culture and strain testing for public health surveillance purposes.  We are part of the national public health network (including the California Department of Public Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) that is involved in controlling and preventing the spread of infectious diseases.  Feel free to contact our laboratory if you have any questions, however, please see Laboratory Test Menu and Specimen Submission sections for specimen and culture collection guidelines.