2009 CIFOR Guidelines to Improve Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response: A toolkit to improve outbreak investigations

To improve the investigation and control of foodborne disease outbreaks, the multidisciplinary Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR) released consensus guidelines in 2009. The guidelines describe critical elements of local and state food safety programs in public health, environmental health, and agriculture agencies. The guidelines also outline model practices on preparing for, detecting, and controlling foodborne disease outbreaks. Because of resource limitations, competing priorities, and conflicts with existing procedures, the CIFOR Guidelines might be difficult to implement locally. To facilitate implementation, a toolkit is being developed to introduce local foodborne disease response staff and teams to the guidelines. The toolkit will help public health and environmental health practitioners to better understand the guidelines and associated recommendations; examine current local foodborne disease surveillance, investigation, and control activities and identify problem areas; identify activities recommended in the guidelines that will help overcome problem areas; and prioritize recommended activities for implementation based on staff time, expertise, and other resources.

In this presentation participants will be walked through the toolkit components and discuss how they might be used to improve foodborne disease outbreak response locally. The presenter will outline ways to engage participants to gain consensus on the need to implement the guidelines (or selected recommendations) and solicit their help in determining how to implement the guidelines.