Study Findings Using NEARS Data
Read food safety study findings and recommendations related to outbreaks reported to the National Environmental Assessment Reporting System (NEARS).
Outbreak investigators reported three underlying root causes that precede C. perfringens outbreaks. These causes are linked with people, processes, and equipment.
Understanding practices linked with smaller and shorter outbreaks helps restaurants take steps to help control and prevent norovirus outbreaks.
Timely and complete outbreak assessments are important to identifying contributing factors.
An environmental assessment provides information that can stop ongoing outbreaks and prevent them in the future. But health department investigators do not always conduct environmental assessments of outbreaks.
Why Investigators Did or Did Not Do Environmental Assessments for Restaurant Outbreaks
Learn about the outbreaks and gaps we found in retail food safety practices and outbreak investigations.
Foodborne outbreak investigations are more often successful when they include data collected through environmental health assessment, epidemiologic investigation, and laboratory testing.
Explore more food safety outbreak findings using other data.
Studies found posting health department restaurant inspection scores at restaurants and using letter grades for restaurant inspection results are linked with fewer foodborne outbreaks and could lead to safer restaurants.