National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference (U13)

The purpose of the National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference is to advance the knowledge, practice and effectiveness of health and food safety educators in support of two Healthy People 2020 goals: FS-1: To reduce infections caused by key pathogens transmitted commonly through food FS-5: To increase the proportion of consumers who follow key food safety practices The proposed conference follows on prior successful conferences (1997, 2002, 2006, and 2010) that were jointly sponsored by the US Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the Food and Drug Administration for the purposes of enhancing public education and outreach to improve food handling practices, and for strengthening collaboration among internal and external stakeholders to prevent foodborne illness. There is great potential to engage health and food safety educators more directly as partners in support of the government’s efforts to prevent foodborne illness. A conference designed to activate field-based educators can be a powerful way to exponentially increase exposure of American consumers to critical evidence-based food safety practices that can reduce incidence of foodborne illness.