Strengthening Foodborne Illness Surveillance and Response Capabilities in Harris County Using an Innovative System-Based Approach

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Project Summary/Abstract The Environmental Public Health Division residing within Harris County Public Health, is responsible for regulating approximately 9,000 food establishments, conducting over 18,000 inspections in 2019, and serving 2.3 million people in Harris County, Texas. The division continuously strives to maintain a robust food safety program and implement innovative solutions to reduce foodborne illness. As a currently funded partner of the Environmental Health Specialists Network, if funded for a new cycle we intend to use grant funds to continue efforts toward reducing foodborne illness in Harris County, Texas and the US. Our long-term goal is to reduce foodborne illness and strengthen surveillance and response capabilities in Harris County, Texas and the US. The overall objective pursuant to our long-term goal, is the use of a systems-based approach to enhancement of the multiple interconnected areas of our foodborne illness and outbreak program concurrently ensuring that it will maximally benefit from an increase in foodborne illness complaints. The specific aims are: 1) Evaluate the barriers that interfere with foodborne illness reporting in Harris County, Texas; 2) Implement and evaluate a new media campaign designed to increase and improve reporting mechanisms; 3) Create a new procedure to utilize for all foodborne illness complaints and outbreak investigations with an emphasis on foodborne illness risk factor control education in implicated food establishments; and 4) Implement a new sampling strategy that focuses on environmental and food samples when investigating foodborne illness. In addition, Harris County Public Health remains committed to assisting with all multi-site studies undertaken by the EHS-Net collaborative. The systems-based approach in this proposal is significant because it attempts to improve upon multiple systems that affect foodborne illness detection, response, and prevention in one cohesive project. While systems theory is not new to the field of food safety, we believe there is potential to add to the current literature and examples demonstrating how a systems theory approach can be helpful in conceptualizing how to enhance food safety programs holistically for health departments nationwide.