title: Preventing and controlling foodborne disease in commercial and institutional food service settings: a systematic review of published intervention studies.
abstract: This study reviews the current literature on behavioral and environmental food safety interventions conducted in commercial and institutional food service settings. A systematic search of the published literature yielded 268 candidate articles, from which a set of 23 articles reporting intervention outcomes was retained for evaluation. A categorization of measured outcomes is reported; studies addressed multiple outcomes ranging from knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of personal hygiene and food safety to management practices and disease rates and outbreaks. This study also investigates the quality of reported research methods used to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions, using a nine-point quality index adapted by the authors. The observed scores suggest that there are opportunities to improve the design and reporting of research in the field of foodborne disease prevention as it applies to food safety interventions that target the food service industry. The aim is to aid researchers in this area to design higher quality studies and to produce clearer and more useful reports of their research. In turn, this can help to create a more complete evidence base that can be used to continually improve interventions in this domain.
authors.affiliation: RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, USA. viator@rti.org.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Viator
authors.affiliation: RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Blitstein
authors.affiliation: RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, USA.
authors.forename: Jenna E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Brophy
authors.affiliation: Department of Food, Nutrition, and Packaging Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, USA.
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fraser
mesh_terms: D005511:Food Handling / Q000592:standards; D005522:Food Services / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D005517:Foodborne Diseases / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D011643:Publishing