Use of epidemiologic data to measure the impact of food safety control programs

The purpose of this ICMSF position paper is to describe epidemiologic data that are useful for evaluating the public health impact of food safety control programs, and to identify how epidemiologic data can be used in the evaluative process. The paper describes how epidemiologic data can be focused on food safety and public health targets by measuring process indicators, physical and/or microbiological outcome indicators and public health outcome indicators. ICMSF believes that integration and application of epidemiologic data from appropriate data systems for the evaluation of food safety strategies will justify and/or lead to proper modification of food safety programs and support efforts to determine equivalency in health protection between alternative food safety strategies.