273307 Improving food safety and outbreak response in the US

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 8:50 AM - 9:10 AM

Anthony Bradley, MA , Northrop Grumman – IS, Atlanta, GA
Background: Each year, foodborne illness strikes 48 million Americans and kills thousands. In many aspects, food safety is dependent on pertinent and timely information. This information can help attribute foodborne illness to specific foods and/or settings.

Objective/Purpose: To provide solutions that assist federal, state, and local public health entities manage information collected on foodborne disease instances and outbreaks and report findings efficiently and correctly. These solutions will provide leaders with the ability to make important decisions regarding the safety of food available for public consumption.

Methods: Northrop Grumman (NG) is developing surveillance solutions to customers that manage data, provide advanced analytic capabilities, and advanced reporting capabilities. NG Solutions utilize interconnect utilities, unique database configurations and cleansing/validation algorithms to seamlessly integrate surveillance data for foodborne and waterborne pathogens like Salmonella, E. Coli, Listeria, Campylobacter and many others. The reporting capabilities consist of temporal, spatial, trending, and ad hoc reports in real or near real time. The solutions also include advanced analytic capabilities, such as modeling, OLAP processing, as well as allowing for user defined analysis. These analytic capabilities are strengthened through our partnerships with SAS, Microsoft, and others.

Results: Using NG surveillance solutions have improved our customers' reporting capabilities by 70 percent. Along with the reporting improvements, customers' now have the capabilities to distribute their data for public and NGO consumption via web based user interfaces. The improved analytic capabilities allow our customers to visualize and investigate relationships within the surveillance data that may have previously gone unnoticed; this has led to greater understanding of data and potential resolutions. Improved understanding of foodborne illnesses and outbreaks will influence food safety processes and possible future legislation.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
Describe ways real time user-enabled data corrections can increase efficiency and improve time-to-analysis. Discuss how data visualization tools can increase understanding of foodborne illness and outbreaks. Explain why providing data on foodborne illness and outbreaks to the public can affect food safety.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Anthony is the principal developer and data manager for a federal surveillance program focusing on the epidemiology of foodborne illness. He has worked in the data management field for the last 10 years in both the Public Health and Financial industries, and has worked in instances of financial crises and public health outbreaks. His scientific interests include improving recognition of risk factors involved in foodborne outbreaks.
Any relevant financial relationships? Yes

Name of Organization Clinical/Research Area Type of relationship
Northrop Grumman Information Services Employment (includes retainer)

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4039.0: Advances in Public Health and Healthcare informatics: Northrop Grumman Innovations and Solutions - Part 1