Epidemiology and Foodborne Illnesses

Epidemiology and Foodborne Illnesses
Most of what is known about foodborne illness started with epidemiology, the study of disease in a population. John Snow, a London physician, used deductive reasoning, research and interviews in the 1880s to determine the cause of a cholera epidemic that had killed more than 500 people in one week.

Scientists used Snow’s technique to investigate primarily infectious diseases until the 1920s, when the field broadened to include clusters of all factors that apply to the incidence of disease among people.

Epidemiological techniques have improved over the years, In 1970s, Dr. Paul Blake developed the case control method.

This method compares those who became ill with closely matched individuals who stayed well.

By examining what those who became ill did differently from those who stayed well, the source of infection can often be revealed.

In the case of foodborne illness an ill person is question about where and what they ate and matched as closely as possible in age, health status and eating pattern to someone who stayed well in an effort to pinpoint differences.

In the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) works to help treat and prevent disease at the national level and has increased its scope to lent epidemiological assistance worldwide because of the overlap between the developed and less developed worlds.

The people who pick and pack fruits and vegetables in foreign countries that are imported the United States are handling the US food supply.

If foreign worker have illness that can be transmitted through food, their illness have a direct bearing on our health.

Foodborne illness is most often linked to bacteria, but there are other agents that can cause foodborne illness, including viruses, parasites, prions and molds.

Bacterial illness is the most prevalent but viruses and parasites are being spread through food more commonly than in the past.

Each types of disease agent has different characteristics that must be considered when implementing food safety strategies.
Epidemiology and Foodborne Illnesses