The Architecture of Federal-State-Local Foodborne Outbreak and Food Defense Communications – Gap Analysis, Performance Comparison and Areas for Functional Improvement

Sharing of information between public health and federal food safety oversight agencies is critical to the effectiveness of foodborne outbreak investigations and prevention of additional cases of illness. Open and rapid information sharing between federal, state, and local partners is essential in foodborne outbreak and food defense programs, and can greatly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of coordinated response. However, each step in the process contains elements that may delay rapid dissemination of outbreak information. Reports of current communications strategies and governmental efforts provide an extremely unbalanced approach to essential information sharing across food safety oversight agencies, and underscores that additional work is needed in terms of active communication, coordination, and support.

In cooperation with the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School, a comprehensive study was undertaken to document existing policies, protocols and lines of communication for the flow of routine and emergent foodborne outbreak and food defense information between federal-state-local public health officials. In addition, efforts focused on cataloguing alternate information sources, identifying gaps and barriers to information sharing, and looked to document the architecture of established foodborne outbreak channels and practices.

This study augments the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) objective to ensure that information regarding specific threats to the safety and security of the food supply are rapidly and effectively disseminated and provides relevant data towards the Integrated Food Safety System (IFSS) goal to facilitate information sharing and communication among all partners.

Gathering and analyzing this study data created a full picture of the status of foodborne disease outbreak communications, illustrated the variety of ways agencies receive notifications, and set a foundation for gap analysis, performance comparison, and identification of areas for functional improvement in the US food safety system.