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Projects

• Enhancing the Roles of State and Local Government in an Integrated, Prevention-Oriented Food Safety System
  This project will bring together state and local officials, their federal counterparts, food industry, consumer groups and other stakeholders to develop an agenda for strengthening state and local roles in an improved national food safety system. Through workshops and other dialogue-based processes, the project will formulate a modern vision for a nationally integrated food safety system, identify obstacles to achieve that vision, recommend changes in law, policy and practice to enhance the effectiveness of state and local food safety agencies, identify opportunities to improve coordination among all levels of government, and describe food safety resource needs at the state and local level.
  
  
• Developing and Applying a Descriptive Framework For Analyzing Food Safety Resources
  This is a research project to develop and apply a descriptive framework for analyzing food safety resource allocation from a public health perspective. In consultation with food safety experts and federal, state and local government officials, the project staff will collect data on government food safety resources and expenditures, devise a framework for describing the allocation of those resources, and apply the framework comprehensively to federal expenditures and on a pilot basis to selected state and local agencies.
  
  
• Food Safety Information Infrastructure
  This project is the first phase of a long-term effort to address the many scientific, technical, legal, policy and business issues that currently affect how food safety data are collected and shared. The goal is to improve public health by facilitating collection of and access to data that many parties in the public and private sectors could use to improve food safety. The project will include identification and analysis of key issues and active dialogue with stakeholders across the food safety community to gauge interest in collaborating to improve current systems and identify opportunities and obstacles likely to affect future progress.
  
  
• Development of computer models for ranking the public health impact of foodborne hazards
  This project builds on previous work on the risk ranking model by including:  economic valuation of additional pathogens, an addition health valuation index, the Health Utility Index (HUI), uncertainty into model inputs and outputs, a shorthand risk-based food attribution method, the facilitation of consensus development for food categories, and a web-based interface for ease of access and usability
  
  
• Prioritizing Opportunities to Reduce Foodborne Risk
  This project begins work on the FSRC’s second stage of decision tools for a more science- and risk-based food safety system to reduce the risk of foodborne disease.  The project has developed a conceptual framework for prioritizing opportunities to reduce risk and  includes approaches for evaluating the cost, effectiveness, and benefits of risk-reduction interventions.  The conceptual model will be presented a National Conference on September 14, 2005.
  
  
• The Foodborne Illness Risk Ranking Model
  The FSRC has developed a draft version of the Foodborne Illness Risk Ranking Model (FIRRM), available for download. FIRRM is a decision tool used to examine and compare the public health burden of foodborne illness due to microbiological hazards from specific food commodities. The model includes twenty eight bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Users can rank pathogen-food combinations by different measures of annual disease burden, including estimated cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, as well as by estimated costs of illness and QALY loss.