Since publication of the first edition of the Guidelines in 2009, there has been more emphasis placed on performance, accountability and transparency by public health agencies. Therefore, a need was identified to develop target values to help state and local public health agencies document their performance and effectiveness for foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak control activities. Given the distributed public health system with multiple independent jurisdictions, the performance targets were intended to provide a framework for communicating best practices for surveillance activities and create clear expectations for performance to increase the likelihood of compliance.
The target ranges for selected CIFOR Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response performance measures were developed to comprise a set of core measures feasible for all states to collect, with explanations of how to do so and why. These were based on the performance measures in the CIFOR Guidelines and on those developed and used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Foodborne Diseases Centers for Outbreak Response Enhancement (FoodCORE). Improvements in many surveillance functions have been documented within FoodCORE sites. The Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence are using the CIFOR performance measures with target ranges to evaluate the timeliness and effectiveness of foodborne disease outbreak investigations, with a focus on assisting states outside of the Centers.
The session will summarize and evaluate the use of the performance measures to improve foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak control activities.