New Resources and Support for Health Departments to Stop Foodborne Disease

Programs Support Health Departments

It's been an exciting time for state and local health departments that work with foodborne outbreaks. CDC expanded the Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence and introduced OutbreakNet Enhanced. Our partner, the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR), announced a webinar to familiarize public health professionals with the CIFOR Guidelines and the Toolkit. These three programs provide multiple resources and tools for outbreak detection and response.

Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence The Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence offer resources and training to other state and local health departments for tracking and investigating foodborne disease. In August, the Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence expanded to include a Northeast Regional Center of Excellence in New York. This newest Center is a collaboration between the New York State Department of Health and Cornell University. Check out the website, Centered on Food Safety newsletter, and Twitter account for more information about all of the Centers. Visit CoEFoodSafetyTools.org to see all tools and videos developed by the Centers.

OutbreakNet Enhanced OutbreakNet Enhanced, launched in August 2015, provides support and resources to state health departments for detecting, investigating, controlling, and reporting foodborne outbreaks. OutbreakNet Enhanced includes 11 state health departments selected by a competitive grant application process. The program provides the following support:   Funds additional epidemiologist positions and student teams to increase interviewing capacity during foodborne outbreaks Sponsors travel to relevant trainings and conferences to enhance surveillance and improve interviewing and data sharing Will track progress and identify areas for improvement using performance metrics The OutbreakNet Enhanced competitive application and funding is part of the Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases Cooperative Agreement. Visit the Capacity and Implementation Team site to get more information as the program develops.

Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR)

CIFOR announces a webinar for public health professionals at the state and local level who are directly involved in foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak detection, investigation, and control.  CIFOR Guidelines and Toolkit Implementation Webinar for Public Health Professionals When: Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 2 pm EST How: Registration required.   Who: The target audience includes epidemiologists, environmental health specialists and sanitarians, laboratorians, public health nurses, and public health educators.  What: This webinar will familiarize public health professionals with the CIFOR Guidelines, the CIFOR Toolkit process and materials, and experiences of other health departments in using these resources. (Visit the CIFOR website after the webinar to see the recorded version.) More: For more information, contact dshah@cste.org.