Quantitative Risk Assessment of Salmonella in Ground Beef Products and the Resulting Impact of Risk Mitigation Strategies on Public Health

Ali Strickland; Fernando Sampedro; Craig W. Hedberg

doi:10.1016/j.jfp.2023.100093

Quantitative Risk Assessment of Salmonella in Ground Beef Products and the Resulting Impact of Risk Mitigation Strategies on Public Health

Ali Strickland, Fernando Sampedro, Craig W. Hedberg

Environmental Health Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Salmonellosis incidence rates have not declined over the last 15 years in the US despite a significant Salmonella prevalence reduction in meat and poultry products. Ground beef is currently regulated using only qualitative Salmonella criteria, and Salmonella enumeration values have been proposed as an alternative for implementing risk-based mitigation strategies to prevent illnesses. The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model to estimate the annual number of salmonellosis cases attributable to the consumption of ground beef contaminated with Salmonella and investigate the impact of risk management strategies on public health. Model results estimated 8,980 (6,222–14,215, 90% CI) annual illnesses attributable to ground beef consumption in the US. The removal or diversion of highly contaminated ground beef production lots containing levels above 10 MPN/g (0.4%) and 1 MPN/g (2.4%) would result in a 13.6% (5,369–12,280, 90% CI) and 36.7% (3,939–8,990, 90% CI) reduction of annual salmonellosis illnesses, respectively. Frozen ground beef cooked at home was the consumption scenario of the highest risk for acquiring salmonellosis. Highly virulent serotypes accounted for 96.7% of annual illnesses despite only being present in 13.7% of ground beef samples. The removal of MDR Salmonella would result in decreased burden of disease with a 45% reduction in acute DALY annually. Focusing salmonellosis reduction efforts on removing highly contaminated ground beef lots, highly virulent Salmonella serotypes, and MDR Salmonella from not-ready-to-eat (NRTE) products were predicted to be effective risk prevention strategies.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	100093
Journal	Journal of food protection
Volume	86
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfp.2023.100093
State	Published - Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This project was made possible by grant funding provided by the Beef Checkoff administered by the Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education and in part by an appointment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Food Safety Fellowship Program administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) through an interagency agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. ORISE is managed by ORAU under DOE contract number DE-SC0014664. All opinions expressed in this paper are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of USDA, FSIS, DOE, or ORAU/ORISE. In addition, partnership with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service provided data validation and critical project support. Many thanks to all entities listed.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

Keywords

Pathogen Enumeration
Quantitative Risk Assessment
Virulence

PubMed: MeSH publication types

Journal Article
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

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10.1016/j.jfp.2023.100093

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@article{721c42f6338a4002827ac057cf7cf1e1,

title = "Quantitative Risk Assessment of Salmonella in Ground Beef Products and the Resulting Impact of Risk Mitigation Strategies on Public Health",

abstract = "Salmonellosis incidence rates have not declined over the last 15 years in the US despite a significant Salmonella prevalence reduction in meat and poultry products. Ground beef is currently regulated using only qualitative Salmonella criteria, and Salmonella enumeration values have been proposed as an alternative for implementing risk-based mitigation strategies to prevent illnesses. The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model to estimate the annual number of salmonellosis cases attributable to the consumption of ground beef contaminated with Salmonella and investigate the impact of risk management strategies on public health. Model results estimated 8,980 (6,222–14,215, 90% CI) annual illnesses attributable to ground beef consumption in the US. The removal or diversion of highly contaminated ground beef production lots containing levels above 10 MPN/g (0.4%) and 1 MPN/g (2.4%) would result in a 13.6% (5,369–12,280, 90% CI) and 36.7% (3,939–8,990, 90% CI) reduction of annual salmonellosis illnesses, respectively. Frozen ground beef cooked at home was the consumption scenario of the highest risk for acquiring salmonellosis. Highly virulent serotypes accounted for 96.7% of annual illnesses despite only being present in 13.7% of ground beef samples. The removal of MDR Salmonella would result in decreased burden of disease with a 45% reduction in acute DALY annually. Focusing salmonellosis reduction efforts on removing highly contaminated ground beef lots, highly virulent Salmonella serotypes, and MDR Salmonella from not-ready-to-eat (NRTE) products were predicted to be effective risk prevention strategies.",

keywords = "Pathogen Enumeration, Quantitative Risk Assessment, Virulence",

author = "Ali Strickland and Fernando Sampedro and Hedberg, {Craig W.}",

note = "Funding Information: This project was made possible by grant funding provided by the Beef Checkoff administered by the Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education and in part by an appointment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture{\textquoteright}s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Food Safety Fellowship Program administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) through an interagency agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. ORISE is managed by ORAU under DOE contract number DE-SC0014664. All opinions expressed in this paper are the author{\textquoteright}s and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of USDA, FSIS, DOE, or ORAU/ORISE. In addition, partnership with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service provided data validation and critical project support. Many thanks to all entities listed. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors",

year = "2023",

month = jun,

doi = "10.1016/j.jfp.2023.100093",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "86",

journal = "Journal of food protection",

issn = "0362-028X",

publisher = "International Association for Food Protection",

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T1 - Quantitative Risk Assessment of Salmonella in Ground Beef Products and the Resulting Impact of Risk Mitigation Strategies on Public Health

AU - Strickland, Ali

AU - Sampedro, Fernando

AU - Hedberg, Craig W.

N1 - Funding Information: This project was made possible by grant funding provided by the Beef Checkoff administered by the Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education and in part by an appointment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Food Safety Fellowship Program administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) through an interagency agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. ORISE is managed by ORAU under DOE contract number DE-SC0014664. All opinions expressed in this paper are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of USDA, FSIS, DOE, or ORAU/ORISE. In addition, partnership with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service provided data validation and critical project support. Many thanks to all entities listed. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors

PY - 2023/6

Y1 - 2023/6

N2 - Salmonellosis incidence rates have not declined over the last 15 years in the US despite a significant Salmonella prevalence reduction in meat and poultry products. Ground beef is currently regulated using only qualitative Salmonella criteria, and Salmonella enumeration values have been proposed as an alternative for implementing risk-based mitigation strategies to prevent illnesses. The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model to estimate the annual number of salmonellosis cases attributable to the consumption of ground beef contaminated with Salmonella and investigate the impact of risk management strategies on public health. Model results estimated 8,980 (6,222–14,215, 90% CI) annual illnesses attributable to ground beef consumption in the US. The removal or diversion of highly contaminated ground beef production lots containing levels above 10 MPN/g (0.4%) and 1 MPN/g (2.4%) would result in a 13.6% (5,369–12,280, 90% CI) and 36.7% (3,939–8,990, 90% CI) reduction of annual salmonellosis illnesses, respectively. Frozen ground beef cooked at home was the consumption scenario of the highest risk for acquiring salmonellosis. Highly virulent serotypes accounted for 96.7% of annual illnesses despite only being present in 13.7% of ground beef samples. The removal of MDR Salmonella would result in decreased burden of disease with a 45% reduction in acute DALY annually. Focusing salmonellosis reduction efforts on removing highly contaminated ground beef lots, highly virulent Salmonella serotypes, and MDR Salmonella from not-ready-to-eat (NRTE) products were predicted to be effective risk prevention strategies.

AB - Salmonellosis incidence rates have not declined over the last 15 years in the US despite a significant Salmonella prevalence reduction in meat and poultry products. Ground beef is currently regulated using only qualitative Salmonella criteria, and Salmonella enumeration values have been proposed as an alternative for implementing risk-based mitigation strategies to prevent illnesses. The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model to estimate the annual number of salmonellosis cases attributable to the consumption of ground beef contaminated with Salmonella and investigate the impact of risk management strategies on public health. Model results estimated 8,980 (6,222–14,215, 90% CI) annual illnesses attributable to ground beef consumption in the US. The removal or diversion of highly contaminated ground beef production lots containing levels above 10 MPN/g (0.4%) and 1 MPN/g (2.4%) would result in a 13.6% (5,369–12,280, 90% CI) and 36.7% (3,939–8,990, 90% CI) reduction of annual salmonellosis illnesses, respectively. Frozen ground beef cooked at home was the consumption scenario of the highest risk for acquiring salmonellosis. Highly virulent serotypes accounted for 96.7% of annual illnesses despite only being present in 13.7% of ground beef samples. The removal of MDR Salmonella would result in decreased burden of disease with a 45% reduction in acute DALY annually. Focusing salmonellosis reduction efforts on removing highly contaminated ground beef lots, highly virulent Salmonella serotypes, and MDR Salmonella from not-ready-to-eat (NRTE) products were predicted to be effective risk prevention strategies.

KW - Pathogen Enumeration

KW - Quantitative Risk Assessment

KW - Virulence

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JO - Journal of food protection

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ER -

Quantitative Risk Assessment of Salmonella in Ground Beef Products and the Resulting Impact of Risk Mitigation Strategies on Public Health

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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