CDC Vital Signs: Making Food Safer to Eat

CDC Vital Signs is an important new program that launched in July 2010. It is a call to action each month concerning a single, important public health topic.  The program uses a three-pronged approach to bring information to the general public, fusing CDC science, policy, and communication to produce a wide array of products, from an Early Release science article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), to a consumer fact sheet and website, to a media release and social media tools.

June 2011's Vital Signs report focuses on foodborne illness.
Each year, 1 in 6 people in the US gets sick from eating contaminated food. The 1,000 or more reported outbreaks that happen each year reveal familiar culprits—Salmonella and other common germs.

Learn what you can do to reduce contamination from the farm to the table.

CDC Vital Signs

Vital Signs report

• CDC Vital Signs: Making Food Safer to Eat
  • Introduction
  • Problem
  • Prevention from the Farm to the Table
    • Outbreak information and references [PDF - 183 KB]
  • What Can Be Done
• MMWR: Vital Signs: Incidence and Trends of Infection with Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food --- Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, 10 U.S. Sites, 1996-2010

Social media

• Buttons, badges, and more
• Vital Signs health e-card
• CDC Vital Signs widget
• CDC on Facebook
• CDC on Twitter

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Questions and Answers

• About Vital Signs report
• About foodborne illness

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Multimedia

Podcasts

• Making Food Safer to Eat: What You Need to Know
• A Cup of Health: Preventing Foodborne Illnesses, MMWR 2010

Videos

• Savvy About Salmonella?
• Foodborne Illness: A Handy Overview
• Animal Planets Killer Outbreaks: E. coli O157
• Got Milk? Don't Get Raw Milk! A Cautionary Tale

Web

• Salmonella is a Sneaky Germ: Seven Tips to Help you Eat Safely
• Incidence of Foodborne Illness, 2010
• Did You Know? Food Safety
• CDC Learning Connection: Spotlight on Food Safety
• Blog: Sneaky Salmonella: It’s Common, Costly, and Preventable

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Information/Resources

What Can Be Done

• Resources
  • Government
  • Farmers, grocery stores, and places make, sell, or serve food
  • Health care providers
  • Everyone
  • General information/resources

What You Can Learn

• CDC Learning Connection: Spotlight on Food Safety
• Just for Kids
• FoodNet (data source for Vital SIgns: Making Food Safer to Eat)
• Foodborne illness A-Z
• How are foodborne illness outbreaks investigated?
• Food Safety prevention and education

Salmonella

• About Salmonella
• MMWRs
• References

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Food Safety Partners

• Dear Colleague letter [PDF - 87 KB]
• Town Hall Teleconference (CDC’s Office for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support)
• CDC partners
• FoodSafety.gov

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News Media

• Press release
• Digital press release
• Press briefing transcript
• Press briefing audio [audio MP3 - 8,135 KB]

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