Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net) - Practice Based Research to Improve Food Safety in New York State

 描述（由申请人提供）：纽约州卫生部（NYSDOH）通过全面的公共卫生活动和服务网络，一直是保护和促进纽约人健康的领导者。国家的复杂性，从人口稠密的城市，农村和郊区，国家在种族，民族和社会经济地位方面的多样性，保证了一个全面和灵活的公共卫生系统，以成功地管理国家的公共卫生。自2000年EHS网络启动以来，有许多关键障碍需要克服。在食源性疫情和环境评估方面，纽约州的地理规模在协调快速有效的反应时可能具有挑战性。在过去的几年里，由于退休和自然减员，一些州和地方部门的工作人员减少了30%。为了克服这些障碍，该项目的具体目标包括与来自环境卫生、疾病监测和实验室当局的其他州和地方伙伴合作并加强伙伴关系，以改善环境评估数据收集和食源性疾病爆发调查，建立和实施方案评估，与国家标准进行比较，并通过各种方式向公众传播教育材料，机制等这将使地方卫生部门和来自许多机构的州工作人员能够采用最佳做法和干预措施，使用EHS网络、改善食源性疫情应对理事会、英才中心和其他快速反应小组确定的国家标准和新形式的技术，以改善纽约人的整体健康和安全。随着脉冲场凝胶电泳（PFGE）和全基因组测序（WGS）等新的实验室技术的实施，疫情和调查的性质发生了很大变化。通过使用PFGE技术和WGS，现在可以将许多司法管辖区的零星病例与共同来源联系起来，可以确定生物体的完整DNA组成，使我们能够更好地了解物种内和物种之间的变化。这些新技术，包括计算机信息共享，将使我们能够在食源性疾病爆发期间进行基本的食源性病原体鉴定，并以新的方式应用它，有可能帮助减少食源性疾病。这些技术的使用和我们在各个项目之间的合作将改善对疾病集群或疫情的调查。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) has been a leader in protecting and advancing the health of New Yorkers through a comprehensive network of public health activities and services. The complexity of the state, from densely populated urban, to rural and suburban areas, the diversity of the state with respect to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, warrants a public health system that is comprehensive and flexible to govern the state's public health successfully. Since the EHS-Net's inception in 2000, there have been a number of critical barriers to overcome. In regards to foodborne outbreak situations and environmental assessments, the geographic size of NYS can be challenging when coordinating a rapid and effective response. Over the past number of years, some state and local departments have experienced as much as a 30% reduction in staff due to retirements and attrition. To overcome these barriers, in part, the specific aims of this project involves engaging and strengthening the partnership with other State and local partners from environmental health, disease surveillance and laboratory authorities to improve environmental assessment data collection and foodborne disease outbreak investigations, establish and implement program evaluations and compare to national standards and disseminate educational materials to the public through a variety of mechanisms. This will allow Local Health Departments (LHDs) and State personnel from numerous agencies to apply best practices and interventions using national standards and new forms of technology identified by EHS-Net, the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR), Centers of Excellence and other Rapid Response Teams (RRT) to improve the overall health and safety of New Yorkers. The nature of outbreaks and investigations has changed considerably with the implementation of new laboratory techniques such as pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS). Sporadic cases of illness across many jurisdictions can now be linked to a common source by using PFGE technology and WGS, the complete DNA make-up of an organism can be determined to enable us to better understand variations both within and between species. These new technologies, including computerized sharing of information, will allow us to perform basic foodborne pathogen identification during foodborne illness outbreaks and apply it in novel ways that have the potential to help reduce foodborne illness. The use of these technologies and our collaboration across programs will improve investigations of illness clusters or outbreaks.