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Food
Safety
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Increase
the number of local health departments/districts making 100 percent
of the inspections of food and lodging required by statue (GS 138.248).
Target:
All local health departments/districts.
Baseline: Will be established in early 2001.
Target Setting Method: Recommended by Division of Environmental
Health, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Decrease
the proportion of critical item violations found in food,
lodging and institutional facilities.
Developmental
Objective, baseline data to be collected in 2001.
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Environmental
Health - Food Safety
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The success of improvement in food production,
processing, preparation, and storage practices are contributed to
the reduction in outbreaks of diseases caused by foodborne pathogens.
(An outbreak occurs when two or more cases of a similar illness result
from eating the same food.) However, foodborne illnesses may increase
due to emerging pathogens, insufficient training of retail employees,
an increasing global food supply, and an increase in the number of
people at risk because of aging and compromised capacity to fight
these diseases.
Certain food handling practices are known
to be critical to the occurrence of foodborne outbreaks. Certain
practices show up year after year in the Centers for Disease Control
analyses. Reduction of these practices should result in a reduction
of disease and of outbreaks. While many people think of foodborne
illness as a gastro-intestinal disease, serious sequelae such as
reactive arthritis, Guillian-Barre Syndrome, and neurological damage
can result.
North Carolina county health departments
perform the inspections of local food, lodging, and institutional
facilities. Each health department has different financial resources
and staffing levels. In turn, some staff are authorized to work
in multiple areas and developmental pressure can pull staff from
food and lodging work into other areas.
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Disparities
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Foodborne illness disproportionately affects
the young, the old, the chronically ill, and the immuno-compromised.
For example, while nursing home residents comprise 2 percent of persons
with foodborne illness, they are 20 percent of the deaths from foodborne
disease. Additional segments of the population, such as pregnant women,
may be severely affected by some foodborne illnesses. (In the case
of pregnant women, Listeriosis causes stillbirths, meningitis, and
other complications that do not appear in "healthy" adults.)
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Determinants/Risk
Factors
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Food handling practices, infected food-handlers,
hand washing frequency, cross-contamination of food contact surfaces,
presence of rodents and insects, and sanitation of food contact surfaces
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Environmental
Health - Food Safety |
