Previous symposia have focused on food safety education for consumers, especially among high-risk populations. General consensus is that high-risk audiences would benefit from seeking advice from healthcare professionals, adequately trained in delivering targeted food safety information. However, not all healthcare professionals are aware of their patient’s increased vulnerability to foodborne illness, nor do they consider themselves experts in food safety. Consumer food safety research suggests healthcare professionals are the most trusted and desired source for food safety information; however, such information has been found to be inconsistent. There is a need for communication between food safety experts and healthcare professionals. Consequently, the goal of this session is to facilitate a panel discussion among researchers, food safety educators and health professionals from the US and the UK to consider how best to develop an effective food safety strategy to enable healthcare professionals to deliver credible and reliable food safety information. 

The internationally recognized panel includes three researchers, two educators, and one healthcare professional. They will consider the barriers and motivators that exist for healthcare professionals to deliver food safety advice to patients and how best to enable healthcare professionals to promote food-wellbeing through the delivery of targeted food safety and nutritional advice to individuals at an increased risk of foodborne illness. The need to change dietetic curriculum from trainee-dietitians having awareness of food safety legislation to focusing on delivery of food safety information, along with methods to enhance registered dietitians attitudes to consciously and proactively (rather than passively and reactively) deliver food safety information to patients, family-caregivers, and other healthcare professionals will be explored. This session will help set the stage for the development of a collaborative approach to improving the outputs of the domain and ultimately impact public health and start an international healthcare food safety education initiative.