title: Evaluation of the US Army Institute of Public Health Destination Monitoring Program, a food safety surveillance program.
abstract: The Destination Monitoring Program, operated by the US Army Public Health Command (APHC), is one component that supports the APHC Veterinary Service's mission to ensure safety and quality of food procured for the Department of Defense (DoD). This program relies on retail product testing to ensure compliance of production facilities and distributors that supply food to the DoD. This program was assessed to determine the validity and timeliness by specifically evaluating whether sample size of items collected was adequate, if food samples collected were representative of risk, and whether the program returns results in a timely manner. Data was collected from the US Army Veterinary Services Lotus Notes database, including all food samples collected and submitted from APHC Region-North for the purposes of destination monitoring from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013. For most food items, only one sample was submitted for testing. The ability to correctly identify a contaminated food lot may be limited by reliance on test results from only one sample, as the level of confidence in a negative test result is low. The food groups most frequently sampled by APHC correlated with the commodities that were implicated in foodborne illness in the United States. Food items to be submitted were equally distributed among districts and branches, but sections within large branches submitted relatively few food samples compared to sections within smaller branches and districts. Finally, laboratory results were not available for about half the food items prior to their respective expiration dates.
authors: US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, Maryland.
authors: Kamala
authors: K
authors: Rapp-Santos
authors: Karyn
authors: K
authors: Havas
authors: Kelly
authors: K
authors: Vest
mesh_terms: D005502:Food / Q000592:standards*; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005513:Food Inspection / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005517:Foodborne Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control; D006801:Humans; D008887:Military Medicine; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012307:Risk Factors; D018401:Sample Size; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States