Minnesota’s Exemplary Food Safety Initiatives

The Minnesota CoE is facilitated by a joint partnership of the MDH and UMN SPH. Kirk Smith, DVM, MS, PhD, manager of the MDH Foodborne, Waterborne, Vectorborne, and Zoonotic Diseases Section, serves as director of the Minnesota CoE. Craig Hedberg, PhD, professor of environmental health in the UMN SPH, is the co-director and Joshua Rounds, MPH, MDH senior epidemiologist, serves as CoE coordinator.

“In accordance with the FSMA legislation, we are committed to improving training, research, continuing education, and outreach related to food safety and the prevention of foodborne illness,” Dr. Smith says. “In particular, we work to identify and implement best practices in foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak investigation, and serve as a resource for local, state, and federal public health professionals who respond to foodborne illness outbreaks.”

All of the Centers were chosen through a competitive process in which a panel reviewed and evaluated applications. The review panel scored and ranked the applications and CDC designated the states scoring the highest on their applications as Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence. The original five Centers were designated in 2012, and the newest Center, New York, joined the program in 2015. To date, the designated Centers are Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee.

“The CDC could not afford to fully fund all 50 states relative to foodborne disease outbreak detection and surveillance, so they selected the better equipped states that could help the others,” Dr. Smith mentions. To date the Minnesota CoE has received about $200,000 annually from CDC, with a recent increase to $400,000 in 2015.

Specifically funded under CDC’s Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases Cooperative Agreement, the Centers have developed a variety of tools and resources to help other state and local health departments track and respond to cases of foodborne illness. These products, available online at no charge, include training courses, guidance documents, and templates.

In addition to these online products, the Centers receive funding to assist state and local health departments on a one-on-one basis, either in person or via remote consultation.
CDC supports the Centers by providing funding, subject matter expertise, and technical assistance. Programmatic staff at the CDC coordinate national activities, promote collaboration among the Centers and with other programs, and work to increase awareness of the program.

With CDC’s support, the Minnesota CoE aims to provide technical help and training in epidemiological, laboratory, and environmental investigations of foodborne illness outbreaks;
decrease the burden of foodborne illness using improved techniques in detection, investigation, control, and reporting; and use information gathered during outbreak investigations to prevent future illnesses and outbreaks

To that end, the Minnesota CoE develops and shares best practices through six main activity areas:

1. Collaborating with public health professionals to strengthen foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak investigations;
2. Analyzing the timeliness and effectiveness of foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak response activities;
3. Training state and local public health staff in epidemiological and environmental investigation of foodborne illness, including timeliness, coordination, and standardization of the investigation process;
4. Establishing fellowships, stipends, and scholarships to educate future epidemiology and food safety leaders in foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak investigation and to address critical workforce shortages;
5. Strengthening capacity to participate in foodborne illness surveillance and environmental assessment information systems; and
6. Conducting food safety program evaluations and outreach activities focused on increasing prevention, communication, and education.

“We believe we already had a good program and were doing a good job of detecting foodborne outbreaks in a speedy manner before the CoE was established,” Dr. Smith relates. “And we already had state-of-the-art surveillance. The CoE allows us to augment other work and translate our knowledge and tools to other states.”