Sick at school? Here’s the stats

(With thanks to Batz for the tip)

Fitting that we had a parent-teacher interview tonight. The teacher doesn’t give the grade 1 students fruit breaks, when every other class does, because, “the students didn’t seem to mind working through.”

I said my kid minded.

Everyone needs an asshole.

State-reported school foodborne outbreaks account for about 3.8% (n = 464) of all outbreaks and 8.2 % (n = 20,667) of all illnesses reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System.

pink.floyd.educationOf 464 school foodborne outbreaks, 122 (26%) outbreaks, 7,603 illnesses, and 301 reported food safety errors met the criteria for inclusion in the analyses. The purpose of the authors’ study was to examine the role of contributing factors in school foodborne outbreaks.

Contamination factors accounted for the greatest proportion (49.2%) of outbreaks involving some level of food handling interaction by a school food service worker, followed by proliferation (34.9%) and survival factors (15.9%). Over 56% of all illnesses were associated with norovirus and food service worker practices.

The results of these analyses highlight the importance of effective food safety education programs that focus on the role of contributing factors and prevention of foodborne disease from food safety errors.

 Analyses of the Contributing Factors Associated With Foodborne Outbreaks in School

Journal of Environmental Health

Venuto, Margaret; Garcia, Kristin; Halbrook, Brenda

http://www.readperiodicals.com/201503/3596980301.html

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About Douglas Powell

A former professor of food safety and the publisher of barfblog.com, Powell is passionate about food, has five daughters, and is an OK goaltender in pickup hockey. Download Doug’s CV here. Dr. Douglas Powell editor, barfblog.com retired professor, food safety 3/289 Annerley Rd Annerley, Queensland 4103 dpowell29@gmail.com 61478222221 I am based in Brisbane, Australia, 15 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time