1. Improve how foods are categorized into commodities Dana Cole, DVM, PhD Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch January 31, 2012

2. Improve How Foods are Grouped into Commodities Overview  Background  Purpose  Project Description  Deliverables  Timeline 2

3.  CDC uses data in outbreak investigation reports submitted by local and state public health agencies to identify the implicated food commodities  CDC publishes annual summaries of foodborne outbreaks  For outbreaks associated with “simple foods,” CDC provides the number of outbreaks and illnesses associated with each one of 17 food commodities Background Improve How Foods are Grouped into Commodities 3

4. Current Scheme for Grouping Foods Into Commodities Represent 17 individual commodities Commodity groups All Food AquaticLandPlant ShellfishMeat-poultry Meat Produce Vegetables FishDairyEggsGrains-beansOils-sugars Crustaceans Mollusks Poultry Beef Game Pork Fruits-nuts Fungi Leafy Root Sprout Vine-stalk Painter et al, J Food Protection 2009 4

5. Simple foods: reported foods that can be grouped into only one commodity  ‘Green salad’ with ‘spinach,’ ‘tomatoes,’ and ‘carrots’ but contaminated ingredient is ‘spinach’  Leafy Green  ‘Steak’  Beef  ‘Fruit salad’  Fruits-nuts Complex foods : reported foods that can be grouped into more than one commodity  ‘Lasagna’ with ‘tomatoes,’ ‘noodles,’ ‘egg,’ and ‘beef’  Vine-stalk, Grains-beans, Egg, Beef  ‘Chow Mein with green salad’  Grains-beans, Pork, Vine-Stalk, Leafy Greens, Oils-Sugars Background Source Attribution Definitions Improve How Foods are Grouped into Commodities 5

6. Purpose  Improve the accuracy of source attribution estimates derived from outbreak data  Categorize foods into commodity groups that are useful to regulatory agencies for decision-making 6

7. Improve How Foods Grouped into Commodities Project Description  Determine changes needed by FDA and FSIS for decision-making  Develop an electronic search tool to find the implicated food in the report  Improve the utility of outbreak-based source attribution for FDA and FSIS decision-making 7

8. Improve How Foods are Grouped into Commodities Project Description Free Text Field (>1800 Foods Reported) 8

9. Improving How Foods are Grouped into Commodities Project Description 9

10. Improve How Foods are Grouped into Commodities

11. Improve How Foods are Grouped into Commodities How Algorithm will Search for Reported Foods Example Decision Tree

12. Example of Potential Changes to Hierarchy All Foods Plant Dried Herbs Oils- Sugars Grains- Beans Produce Tree nuts Fruits Vegetables Leafy- Vine- Stalk Flower, leafy & stem Herbs Fruit veggies Root Sprout Fungi Land Animals Meat- Poultry Poultry RTE Poultry RTE Chicken RTE Turkey Raw Poultry Raw Chicken Raw Turkey Raw Other Poultry Meat RTE Meat RTE Pork RTE Beef Raw Meat Raw Pork Raw Beef Raw Other Meat Eggs Dairy Game Aquatic Animals Fish Shell Fish Crustaceans Mollusk s

13. Improve How Foods are Grouped into Commodities Deliverables  Improved method to identify each food in outbreak report  Commodity categories useful to FSIS and FDA decision- making  New methods to re-classify foods in outbreaks reported since 2009, then apply these to data from earlier years 13

14. Improve How Foods are Grouped into Commodities Timeline  Project plan approved in Spring 2011  Method and results currently under review by project team  Improvements will be applied to data reported since 2009 by February 2012  Project will meet IFSAC short-term need to increase the accuracy and utility of food commodity assignments used to generate illness attribution estimates reflecting FDA and FSIS’ regulatory perspectives on food 14

15. Thank You 1600 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30333 Telephone: 1-800-CDC-INFO (232-4636)/TTY: 1-888-232-6348 E-mail: cdcinfo@cdc.gov Web: http://www.cdc.gov The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.