Prioritization for Risk Management of Foodbourne Hazards
This project is funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health.
Which Hazard-food Pairs Represent the Most Significant Health Risks?
An efficient food safety control strategy is necessary in order to ensure public health. The high number of hazards consumers are exposed to through food drives the need for prioritization tools that allow risk managers to plan time- and cost-effective food safety inspections.
With the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, we are working to develop tools for setting priorities of concern for hazard-food pairs, taking into account the toxicity of the hazard, contamination levels of the hazard in food, and estimated food consumption amounts for the Swiss population.
The aims of the project are to:
- Develop a tool for ranking hazard-food combinations that relies on empirical data and considers health-related characteristics (toxicity of the hazard, concentration of the hazard in food and food consumption),
- Develop a structured and automated database containing information relevant for the ranking of hazard-food pairs, which would ensure transparency, consistency, and reproducibility of the ranking process, and
- Apply the tool to groups of hazards such as mycotoxins or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
