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C. E. WOTEKI, College of Agriculture, Iowa State Univ., Office of the Dean, 138 Curtiss Hall, Ames, IA 50011 In the United States and other developed countries, significant opportunities remain to further reduce the burden of foodborne illness and its attendant economic costs. Interventions implemented over the past century by industry and government to improve the safety of the food supply have resulted in significant improvements in public health protection and reductions in mortality and morbidity in developed countries. A limited but growing number of studies have estimated the economic costs of foodborne illnesses and the costs of implementation of food safety interventions. For example, recent analyses conducted by the Economic Research Service estimate that the societal costs associated with five foodborne pathogens are $6.9 billion annually, and that implementation of the HACCP inspection system for meat and poultry increased industry's production costs approximately 1%, although the public health benefits still outweigh industry's costs. Foodborne illness occurs because of the interaction of many natural phenomena and human behaviors, and thus is not solely a scientific, regulatory, or human behavior problem. Strategies to reduce the societal costs require diverse disciplinary perspectives and implementation in an integrated, system-wide manner. In 2003, USDA/CSREES funded a consortium of six research institutions to develop a conceptual framework for identifying and evaluating opportunities in the food system (farm-to-table) for interventions that will reduce the burden of foodborne illness. This framework will provide the necessary background for a model for prioritizing opportunities to reduce risk that will guide the development of information and decision tools for food safety and public health officials, commercial participants, and individual consumers. A key component is the effort to integrate hazard- and illness-specific analyses in order to understand how interventions interact across the food system.
Session 24, Are you making a difference: Evaluating the impact of education programs
2005 IFT Annual Meeting, July 15-20 - New Orleans, Louisiana |