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FDA ANNOUNCES FOOD SAFETY GRANTS

The Food and Drug Administration today advanced the Nation's food safety by supporting 13 imaginative programs that address the risks of foodborne disease in settings as varied as elementary schools, shellfish inspections, establishments with immigrant food handlers, and while river boating and hiking through the backcountry.

The programs, which are sponsored by state and local regulatory agencies, were awarded FDA grants totaling $500,000 during September’s Food Safety Education Month. The FDA grants are part of the Federal Food Safety program designed to complement, develop, or improve state and local food safety programs.

The awards, which may be transferred to other state and local jurisdictions, are for a one-year period and are focused on two key areas: inspection techniques and education/health information dissemination.
The grants awarded and the grantees are:

1. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, "Risk Focused Inspection Training and Evaluation" -- expands a risk-focused inspection protocol implemented for medium and high-risk food service establishments.
2. Bond County Health Department (IL), "Develop a HACCP Training Manual for Food Service Establishments" -- creates a food service training manual, to increase the knowledge and use of HACCP management systems in food service establishments.
3. Brown Nicollet Environmental Health (MN), "The Food Handler's Card Project" -- designs and implements a pilot certification program for all workers in food service establishments in four Minnesota counties.
4. Coconino County Department of Health Services (AZ), "Food Safety Training Program for Backcountry Operators" -- creates a home study course based on the current FDA Food Code for river guides and other backcountry outfitters nationwide.
5. Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services "Electronic Inspection System" -- develops and produces a portable, electronic pen tablet and custom software program that can be used by state inspectors in states that are members of the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference.
6. Kansas Department of Health & Environment, "Focus on Food Safety: Tomorrow's Training Today" -- develops a multi-task project utilizing a new food safety interactive website/CD-ROM, and an electronic presentation for food service workers, students, and consumers.
7. Kern County Environmental Health Services Department (CA), "Education and Health Information Dissemination" -- creates a unique educational program of providing food safety training to teenagers and to elementary school students, through the public school system.
8. Maricopa County Environmental Services Department (AZ), "Interactive Computer Based Training for Regulatory Staff" -- creates an interactive CD-ROM that can be used for training environmental health specialists to conduct inspections in food establishments.
9. Massachusetts Department of Public Health, "Standard HACCP & Risk Control Instruction for Retail Food Regulators" -- designed to standardize instruction for local and state retail food regulators in the initiation, evaluation and verification of HACCP and risk control plans in retail food establishments.
10. Multnomah County Health Department (OR), "Food Handler Training and Testing for Non-Native English Speakers" -- addresses shortcomings in current training resources by using a web-based, interactive multimedia approach that incorporates adult learning theory and technique.
11. Rhode Island Department of Health, "Inspections Methods to Reduce Frequency of Risk Factors in Schools" -- addresses the underlying cause for the existence of CDC identified risk factors in schools; barriers to their removal; and develops a plan for reducing these factors by more than the 25 percent FDA target.
12. State of Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, "Program Standards Audit Team" -- designed to decrease the occurrence of foodborne illness by increasing uniformity through the development of food program assessments.
13. State of Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals Services, "Integrated Data Acquisition Project" -- designed to improve the link between collection of field data, storage, and information access of current database to meet the efficiency demands without compromising public safety.
    

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