Food Safety Resources

CDC Prevention Status Reports

Read the reports and check out the new food safety indicator on state adoption of selected foodborne disease-related provisions from the 2013 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Code.

National Environmental Assessment Reporting System (NEARS)

Is your jurisdiction registered? Capture environmental assessment data from foodborne illness outbreaks to help prevent outbreaks associated with restaurants and other food venues.

Infographic on Contributing Factors

Learn about contributing factors to outbreaks and how you can identify them during outbreak investigations.

Infographic on Kitchen Manager Certification

Learn more about restaurant food safety and the importance of kitchen manager certification.

Infographic on Preventing Foodborne Illness

Learn how we help prevent foodborne illness outbreaks by understanding the environmental factors contributing to them.

Study Tools

Develop your own studies using our Environmental Health Specialists Network study protocols, data collection instruments, and data collection instructions.

Environmental Health Specialists Network Information System (EHSNIS)

Design your own data collection instruments for environmental health research using through this free internet application.

Findings & Recommendations in Plain Language

Peruse our plain language research findings and recommendations on restaurant food safety topics such as sick food workers, hand hygiene, and kitchen manager certification.

e-Learning on Environmental Assessment of Foodborne Illness Outbreaks

Practice skills in an interactive virtual environment and learn to conduct environmental assessments as part of outbreak investigations.

Environmental Health Training in Emergency Response (EHTER)

Improve your knowledge, skills, and resources to address the environmental health impacts of emergencies and disasters on food safety and other topics.

Environmental Public Health Online Courses (EPHOC)

Access comprehensive workforce development resources for environmental public health practitioners with this free package of 15 e-learning courses on food protection and other topics.

Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net)

More than half of foodborne illness outbreaks are associated with restaurants. Learn about our research program to identify environmental causes of outbreaks in the restaurant setting.

Public’s Beliefs that Restaurants Meals Made Them Sick

Read our study about people’s experience with and beliefs about foodborne illness.

Restaurant Food Handling and Food Safety Practices

Access studies on how restaurants handle specific foods (e.g., beef, poultry, eggs, tomatoes, leafy greens) and restaurant food safety practices (food cooling, food preparation, handwashing, sick workers, kitchen manager certification, and others).

Restaurant-related Foodborne Illness Outbreaks

Explore studies on the practices of restaurants with outbreaks and how they differ from restaurants without outbreaks.

Retail Food Safety Programs

Review studies about environmental health specialists’ practices during inspections and outbreak investigations and about whether certified kitchen managers cause fewer critical violations.

Environmental Investigation of a Multistate E. coli Outbreak on Spinach

Read about our watershed-scale investigation of the outbreak, including the potential effects of irrigation water quality.

Food Safety Publications

Explore our food safety publications.