A risk-based approach to setting priorities and developing management strategies for foodborne and zoonotic pathogens often involves the qualitative or quantitative ranking of hazards or potential control measures. These rankings may be based on estimates of incidence or measures of disease burden such as disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), but there is a growing recognition that infectious diseases have numerous dimensions beyond these metrics. A number of multi-factorial approaches have been developed across the world to rank pathogens not only on their direct impacts to public health, but also on aspects such as distributional factors, epidemic potential, disease trends, socioeconomic factors, impacts on trade or domestic industries, availability or feasibility of control measures, impacts on ecological or wildlife, and consumer preferences, among others. There is a range of novel approaches that have been developed, as the attributes of importance, quality of scientific data, and availability of expertise may vary by country or depend on aspects of the risk management context.

This symposium will include presentations on a number of multicriteria frameworks that have been developed and applied to address food safety, zoonotic disease, and animal health in a number of different countries. The symposium will focus on consideration of the appropriate metrics for different risk criteria and methods for aggregating evidence across multiple criteria. Presenters will address how these multicriteria approaches addressed needs of the decision making process and ultimately how the results were used by policymakers. This symposium will introduce IAFP attendees to an important methodology for prioritization that is being increasingly used throughout the world, but which has not had wide coverage at IAFP in the past.

Presentations