FoodCORE: Foodborne Diseases Centers for Outbreak Response Enhancement - Improving foodborne disease outbreak response capacity in state and local health departments

Background: Each year foodborne diseases (FBD) cause illness in approximately 1 in 6 Americans, resulting in 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. Decreasing resources impact the ability of public health officials to identify, respond to, and control FBD outbreaks. FoodCORE was established during 2010 to address gaps in FBD outbreak response by improving capacity in three core areas: laboratory, epidemiologic, and environmental health activities. Methods: FoodCORE sites work collaboratively to develop and implement best practice models for surveillance and rapid, coordinated, and standardized response to FBD outbreaks. Successes are documented using performance metrics based on the Council for Improving Foodborne Outbreak Response Guidelines. FoodCORE sites convene regularly, provide quarterly reports, and collaborate with other FBD programs to discuss, document, and share best practices. Results: The current FoodCORE sites are Connecticut, New York City, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin. Since implementation, sites have improved completeness and timeliness for laboratory and epidemiologic activities. On average, over 95% of Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, and Listeria (SSL) isolates were subtyped. Epidemiology staff followed up with nearly 90% of all reported SSL cases. FoodCORE sites routinely engage environmental health and/or regulatory partners, and are active participants in national outbreak surveillance. Conclusions: FoodCORE promotes the evaluation and application of surveillance and investigation strategies to improve the detection, investigation, and control of FBD outbreaks. Enhanced outbreak response efforts can shorten the time it takes to identify a source of infection and pinpoint how and why contamination occurred, in order to limit additional illnesses and help prevent future FBD outbreaks.