Accomplishments in Researching Practices

Key points

Explore the impact of our research on restaurant food safety. Since 2000, we have worked with partners to improve food safety on a national scale and in specific communities.

Waitress carrying plates of food.

Overview

We research food safety policies and practices in restaurants.

Since 2000, our Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net) has brought together partners to research restaurant food safety practices. Partners include state and local environmental health programs, CDC, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). EHS-Net has conducted 15 collaborative research studies. State and local EHS-Net programs also conduct their own individual research projects.

Highlights

Certified kitchen managers

In 2006, EHS-Net found that restaurants with foodborne outbreaks were less likely to have a kitchen manager certified in food safety than restaurants without outbreaks.

  • FDA used these findings to recommend a provision requiring restaurants to have a certified kitchen manager in their 2013 Food Code.
  • FDA used additional EHS-Net studies to further strengthen the provision in the 2017 Food Code, which now requires restaurants to have a certified manager on site during all hours of operation.
Two restaurant kitchen staff with the word "certified" between them.
EHS-Net research helped strengthen Food Code provisions about certified kitchen managers in restaurants.

Ground beef practices

Nearly 1 in 10 foodborne outbreaks are linked with ground beef each year.

  • EHS-Net found that only about 1 in 5 retail establishments kept beef grinding records. These records help trace food implicated in an outbreak back to the facility that produced it. USDA used these and other findings to require establishments to keep beef grinding logs.
  • Rhode Island, an EHS-Net site, was the only northeastern state that prohibited selling undercooked ground meat to children. Their research found they had lower E. coli illness rates than other northeastern states. This finding supported FDA's update to the 2009 Food Code to prohibit undercooked ground meat in children's menu items.

Retail delis

The bacteria Listeria monocytogenes causes the third highest number of foodborne illness deaths in the United States each year. Contamination of deli meats is an important cause of outbreaks.

  • EHS-Net found many delis were not following guidance to control bacteria like Listeria monocytogenes. For example, about half of delis did not fully clean their slicers every 4 hours, and 1 in 6 delis had a refrigerator that was too warm.
  • EHS-Net's findings were used by CDC, FDA, and USDA in a joint effort to assess the impact of deli practices on risk of disease from Listeria. This assessment was then included in USDA's 2016 and 2023 guidelines on best practices for controlling these harmful bacteria in delis.
Graphic of a deli counter with a food worker and customer.
EHS-Net research on Listeria in retail delis informed USDA's guidelines.

Norovirus

Norovirus is the leading cause of foodborne outbreaks in the United States. Infected food workers cause about 70% of norovirus outbreaks related to contaminated food.

  • EHS-Net found 1 in 5 food workers reported working while sick with vomiting and diarrhea. Fear of losing their job or leaving coworkers short staffed were important factors in their decision.
  • EHS-Net also found that food workers washed their hands only 1 of every 4 times they should have.
  • These findings informed CDC's Vital Signs on preventing norovirus outbreaks. This guidance stressed that restaurants should ensure food workers wash their hands and require sick food workers to stay home, including paying them sick leave or using other practices to support sick workers staying home.

Individual EHS-Net project accomplishments

EHS-Net programs also conduct individual research projects based on community needs. Read our partner success stories and explore tools created from their work.

What CDC is doing

Since 2000, findings from our research have been distributed in more than 70 articles and plain language summaries.

CDC and EHS-Net sites have also given more than 130 presentations on their work at local, regional, and national conferences and meetings in the past few years alone.

Our food safety research also led to the creation of the National Environmental Assessment Reporting System (NEARS). NEARS works to improve outbreak investigations and understand environmental causes of outbreaks.

Resources

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Content Source:
National Center for Environmental Health