Food Borne Outbreak Prevention: Is Inspection Timing the Key? [POSTER]

Public Health, Seattle & King County uses a risk based inspection and consultation system for winning food safety compliance in food service establishments. The utility of inspection scores as predictors of Foodborne outbreaks has been the subject of numerous studies. Although inspection scores are risk based, several of the studies found no correlation between inspection scores and the implication of establishments in Foodborne outbreaks. This study sought to test the hypothesis that temporal distribution of inspection visits influences risk for operator preventable food borne outbreaks. The study was designed to explore possible correlations between temporal distributions of food service operation, inspection visits, and service of meals associated with operator preventable food borne outbreaks. Retrospective data was collected and compared for two groups of food service establishments matched by risk category, postal code, and date range: those with operator preventable food borne outbreaks which were classified as confirmed or probable and those of matched food establishments that had never been implicated in foodborne outbreaks.