Tracking Trends in Research on Foodborne Pathogens of Public Health Concern through USDA's Food Safety Research Projects Database

Introduction: The Food Safety Research Information Office (FSRIO) at the USDA ARS National Agricultural Library was mandated by the United States Congress to support the needs of the research community. FSRIO meets its congressional mandate through collecting, organizing and disseminating food safety research information via its website which features the Research Projects Database (RPD). The RPD is a publicly accessible and searchable database that showcases more than 8,800 food safety research projects funded by both United States and International government agencies and other non-government organizations.  In an effort to better meet the information needs of the researchers, FSRIO is exploring the possibilities of utilizing the RPD to showcase food safety research trends worldwide.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to quantitatively estimate the number of research projects in the RPD (1980-present) that are associated with foodborne pathogens of public health concern and track trends in research on foodborne pathogens.

Methods: Key foodborne pathogens of public health concern were selected based on the data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2014 report. To determine the number of research projects for each selected pathogen, the search fields were created on FSRIO’s RPD interface. Each search sequence contained the name of the pathogen in the “full-text” field combined with “exact phrase” or “all words” field. The search was conducted separately for each pathogen.

Results: Among the pathogens searched, RPD contained highest number of research projects on Salmonella (1,671) followed by Listeria (737), Escherichia coli O157 (619), Campylobacter (598), Vibrio (247), Cryptosporidium (170), Shigella (133), Yersinia (105), STEC non-O157 (60) and Cyclospora (17).

Significance: These results indicate that Salmonella is the principal pathogen of interest among food safety researchers worldwide followed by Listeria and Escherichia coli O157. This trend may provide important information to researchers in their research planning process.