Sick food service workers remain top driver of viral foodborne outbreaks in US
Key takeaways:
- Contamination from an infectious food worker through barehand contact was the most common factor in viral outbreaks from 2014 to 2019.
- Restaurant managers can help reduce practices that contribute to outbreaks.
Sick workers contaminating food with foodborne germs led to the majority of viral outbreaks across the U.S. between 2014 and 2022, according to data published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Researchers also identified food temperatures that led to germ growth and survival — leaving food out at the wrong temperature for too long and failing to cook food at a high enough temperature or for long enough to kill germs — as the most common food worker practice associated with bacterial outbreaks.
“We wanted to examine data from state and local health departments to better understand how outbreaks are occurring to ensure our guidance and training is responsive to what’s actually happening,” Meghan M. Holst, MSPH, epidemiologist in food safety at the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, told Healio. “Each year, these health departments investigate hundreds of foodborne outbreaks and report data from their investigations to CDC. They collect data on what practices led to the outbreak.”
Holst and colleagues used the Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System, via the CDC’s National Outbreak Reporting System, to gather data on 2,677 foodborne illness outbreaks reported between 2014 and 2022. They categorized outbreak periods into first (2014-2016), second (2017-2019) and third (2020-2022) time frames.
Overall, 42.7% of foodborne outbreaks occurred during the first time frame, followed by 42.2% during the second and 15.1% during the third.
Results showed an increase in the proportion of bacterial outbreaks from 41.9% from 2014 to 2016 to 48.4% from 2020 to 2022, but a decrease in the proportion of viral outbreaks from 33.3% to 23.2% during these times.
Researchers also observed a decrease in the proportion of outbreaks with a contamination contributing factor over each consecutive time frame — from 85.6% to 83.6% to 81%.
Contamination from an infectious food worker through barehand contact with food was the most common contributing factor of viral outbreaks from 2014 to 2016 (47.1%) and 2017 to 2019 (37.7%). It became the third most common factor from 2020 to 2022 (28.7%).
Conversely, contamination from an infectious food worker through gloved-hand contact with food was the most common factor and highest from 2020 to 2022 (42.5%). It remained a top contributing factor in the first (32.1%) and second (25.5%) time frames.
Inadequate time and temperature control during initial cooking contributed to bacterial outbreaks during all three time frames (23.8%, 20.4% and 20.9%, respectively), whereas improper cooling was a top contributing factor in the third time frame (17.3%) but not the first two.
“This report provides valuable new data on the factors contributing to foodborne outbreaks over a 9-year period,” Holst told Healio. “This information helps us understand how to prevent outbreaks.”
She added, “Restaurant managers play an important role in reducing these practices that contribute to outbreaks. They can create clear policies on managing sick workers and plan for staffing shortages caused by sick workers who need to stay home. They can also create clear practices and training for workers about proper temperature control of food. Health department staff can help by reminding restaurants to follow food safety plans and procedures.”
Collapse
Read more about