member spotlight
Supporting Farms, Families and the Environment
in Ventura County
by Nancy Maddox, MPH, writer
A
sk Denise Von Bargen what’s great about Ventura County, California, and
she will tell you without skipping a beat, “We have the best climate in
the world.” With year-round sunshine, ocean breezes and daytime temps
that seldom stray from the 60s and 70s, few would argue with this assessment.
Named after the county seat of San Buenaventura, the jurisdiction lies along
the Pacific Coast, nestled between Los Angeles (LA) County and Santa Barbara
County, from which it separated in 1873. Von Bargen, who heads the Ventura
County Public Health Laboratory, said the jurisdiction’s 42 miles of Pacific
coastline and off-shore Channel Islands include stunning beaches, which her
staff visit on a routine basis; the laboratory tests ocean water quality at 40 sites/
week during “summer” months and 20 sites/week from November to March.
The county’s abundant wildlife—about half its 2,200 square miles is national
forestland—also generates work for the laboratory. Rabies is endemic here, and
the laboratory has tested everything from foxes to skunks to bats.
Another large swath of Ventura County, about a quarter of its land area,
is farmland, mostly devoted to the cultivation of lemons, avocados and
strawberries. Out of a population of about 850,000 residents, roughly 50,000 are
farmworkers and their families. In addition, about 20,000 migrant farmworkers
reside here for part of the year, sometimes importing diseases like tuberculosis,
for which the laboratory also tests. “TB is an important issue,” said Von Bargen.
“The wage for farmhands averages about $7.00 an hour, so there is not good
access to healthcare.”
At the other end of the employment spectrum, the county is home to Amgen,
a multinational company that manufactures biologics—genetically-engineered
vaccines and drug therapies. Other large employers include the local
government, two US Navy bases, an Air National Guard base and California
State University–Channel Islands, the newest of the 23 campuses in the
California state university system. By virtue of its scenic location and proximity
to the Hollywood film industry, the campus has served as a backdrop for music
videos and scenes from several movies, including The Ring and Buffy the
Vampire Slayer.
Of note, Port Hueneme—the only deep water port between LA and San
Francisco—lies about midway along the Ventura County coast, and is the entry
point for assorted goods, including a lot of cars and bananas.
Facility
In 2005, the public health laboratory—along with all the central offices of
the Ventura County Health Care Agency—moved into a brand new facility in
Oxnard, the county’s most populous city, situated about 30 miles west of LA city
limits. The two-story building features a stucco façade and red Spanish roof tiles
and overlooks strawberry fields and medical office buildings, just off California’s
famed coastal highway, US Route 101. The 5,000-square-foot laboratory boasts
two BSL-3 suites. It shares the ground floor with the Office of Vital Records and
three public health clinics. Upstairs offices house administrative staff, including
county epidemiologists. Although Von Bargen said the laboratory is “really
easy to get to,” its 20 mile distance from the Ventura County Medical Center
necessitates the use of a courier service for specimen transport between the two.
Director
Von Bargen was raised in a military family and had an international childhood.
She said, “I spent some of my early years in Ethiopia and later years in Bangkok
and Laos. My dad retired in Bangkok, and when I was in my last year of high
school we returned to Santa Rosa, California, my mother’s hometown.” After
high school, she worked as a lab assistant at Scripps Memorial Hospital while
earning a BS degree in microbiology from San Diego State University. Although
Von Bargen had planned to become a “med tech,” she said, “Someone at Scripps
was going into public health and I became very interested in that field.”
30
LAB MATTERS Fall 2016
Ventura County Public Health Laboratory Staff. Back r ow (l to r): Salvador Barragan, Sherri Hurd, Cameron Chandler.
Front row (l to r): Carol Hannah, Lauren Stead, MS, Nadia Van Buren, Michael Soto, Syreeta Steele, PhD
To qualify for a state microbiologist license, she did a six-month stint at the
bench in the San Diego Public Health Laboratory and was hooked. Immediately
thereafter, she accepted a position at the Ventura County Public Health
Laboratory. Then her career took an unexpected turn: “I got married, had three
kids and moved to the East Coast for my husband’s job.” For the next decade
or so, Von Bargen worked part time in various positions, including teaching
microbiology to Immaculata University nursing students, working for a
pharmaceutical company and doing clinical hospital work. When the family
returned to California, she took a job doing sales support for AmGen and was
based on-site at Life Technologies (now Thermo Fisher Scientific). Von Bargen
said, “When my last child went to college, someone I still knew [at the Ventura
County laboratory] told me someone was retiring and there was an open
microbiology position there.” Thus, in 2007, she returned to the place her career
began. In May 2015, Von Bargen advanced to laboratory director.
Since water is such a critical issue in this droughtstricken state, laboratory data were crucial to inform
state water policy.
Staff
The laboratory, now fully staffed, employs five microbiologists, three support
staff and Von Bargen.
Revenue
The yearly laboratory budget is about $1.8 million, virtually all coming from
county general funds.
Testing
Testing for sexually transmitted infections—primarily HIV and chlamydia/
gonorrhea—is the laboratory’s highest volume service. Other clinical tests
include the QuantiFERON-TB Gold test, the Salmonella PCR, measles PCR,
norovirus PCR and CDC’s new Trioplex real-time RT-PCR assay for dengue, Zika
and Chikungunya viruses. The laboratory performs serum titers for rubeola
and varicella for new county employees and also tests about 10-15 animals/
week for rabies (with about 5 to 7 positives/year). Its only non-clinical work is
recreational beach water testing. Virtually all of the laboratory’s services are
performed on behalf of other county programs, including over 40 ambulatory
clinics located throughout the jurisdiction.
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