As a 20 year veteran of the US Public Health Service officer from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, Dr. Margaret Scarlett is a policy and program leader in infection control in outpatient settings. Since the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and prior to the launch of the hepatitis B vaccine, Dr. Scarlett worked nationally and internationally on provider and patient safety in hospitals, healthcare systems and outpatient surgery centers. This includes consultations with 8 Ministries of Health, the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization, as well as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

As first author of the CDC's first guidelines for infection control in dentistry in 1984, she received numerous awards for her work at CDC to promote health and safety in outpatient care settings, including as a Senior Policy Analyst with the US Surgeon General from 1998-2000. Since retiring from CDC in 2001, Dr. Scarlett continues to ensure safety in outpatient safety, providing training and continuous process improvement in infection control, infectious and chronic diseases as a consultant. For example, she was one of 22 trainers on infection control to protect healthworkers deployed to West Africa during the Ebola outbreak 2014-2015 for CDC. In addition, her company, Scarlett Consulting International, is a veteran-owned small business subcontractor under a a government-wide contract at the US Department of Health and Human Services to provide data analysis and predictive analytics for ensuring patient and provider safety. Dr. Scarlett works on policies, programs and protocols with hospitals, patients and health workers on pandemic preparedness and response.