Foodborne illness outbreak reporting provides food safety programs with collaborative opportunities at the intersection of epidemiology and environmental health. This webinar will explore outbreak reporting through two CDC surveillance systems: NORS and NEARS.
Presenter Meelay Tellier will provide the background on NORS, and discuss how it’s used from an epidemiological outbreak investigation perspective. Presenter Cyndi Free will then provide the background on NEARS and how it’s used for reporting environmental health outbreak investigations. Meelay will then share how epi and environmental health programs at the Washington state Department of Health work together to report outbreaks.
NEARS: National Environmental Assessment Reporting System
NORS: National Outbreak Reporting System
Featured Speakers
Meelay Tellier, MPH
Foodborne and Enteric Disease Epidemiologist
Washington State Department of Health
Cyndi Free
Environmental Health and Food Safety Coordinator
Washington State Department of Health
Learning Objectives
- Describe NORS reporting for epidemiological outbreak investigations
- Describe NEARS reporting for environmental health outbreak investigations
- Discuss best practices for communication between epidemiology and environmental health during and after foodborne outbreak investigations
- Explain how the epidemiology and environmental health programs at the Washington State Department of Health work together to report outbreaks