Environmental Assessments

Key points

Food safety programs can use environmental assessments to respond to outbreaks of foodborne illness and make recommendations to prevent them in the future.

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Importance

An environmental assessment of an outbreak determines how and why germs got into the environment and spread to make people sick. In an outbreak, contributing factors are the "how" and root causes are the "why."

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Contributing Factors

Identify contributing factors in foodborne illness outbreaks to help stop and prevent them.
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Root Causes of Outbreaks

Use our resources to identify root causes of foodborne illness outbreaks.

Environmental health's role in these assessments‎

Learn how environmental health services answer how and why a disease outbreak occurs, recommend actions to stop outbreaks and prevent future ones, and shield hosts from harmful agents through environmental controls.
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Skills for successful investigations

The skills needed to investigate outbreaks of foodborne illness in restaurants are different from those needed to inspect restaurants. Learn what makes outbreak investigations successful and take our training to bolster your skills.

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Environmental Assessment Training Series (EATS)

Learn the role of environmental assessments in outbreak investigations and the food safety system.
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Traits of Successful Investigations

Learn about what helps make foodborne outbreak investigations successful more often.

More resources

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Environmental Assessment Definitions

Review key terms used in environmental assessments of foodborne outbreak investigations.
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National Environmental Assessment Reporting System

Use NEARS to capture environmental assessment data from foodborne illness outbreak investigations.
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Improving Investigations

Use our environmental assessment resources to improve your outbreak investigations.
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Investigation Summaries in Plain Language

Explore key findings about the environmental component of outbreak investigations.
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Improving Practices

Explore our research on restaurant practices to reduce foodborne illness in restaurants.
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Content Source:
National Center for Environmental Health