Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Cochise County health staff outline how epidemiology and environmental health track and investigate foodborne illness
Summary
County epidemiology and environmental health staff described how passive, active and syndromic surveillance work together, the county's inspection priorities under the 2022 FDA Food Code and staffing limits that affect response capacity.
Cochise County epidemiologist Axel Lopez and Environmental Health Division Director Natalie Johnson told the Cochise County Board of Health on Friday that the county uses three primary methods to detect and investigate suspected foodborne and waterborne illnesses: passive, active and syndromic surveillance.
Lopez explained that passive surveillance depends on laboratory and provider reports, active surveillance involves outreach to find additional cases linked by common exposures, and syndromic surveillance looks at anonymized emergency-department visit data. "The three main ones are gonna be passive surveillance... active surveillance... and syndromic surveillance," he said.
The county's environmental health team inspects and investigates licensed food establishments, temporary food events, pools, lodging and on-site…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
