The CDC’s latest Prevention Status Reports (PSRs) highlight the status of state-level policies and practices to prevent or reduce problems affecting public health. The PSRs cover 10 public health topics—including food safety—and rate states on their implementation of recommended policies and practices.
The reports include a new measure on state adoption of selected provisions in the 2013 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Code. The Food Code is a science-based model code that states can use to develop or update their food safety rules to better prevent foodborne illness and outbreaks.
The CDC identified four Food Code provisions especially important in reducing outbreaks in restaurants and other retail food establishments:
- Exclude ill food service staff from working until at least 24 hours after symptoms, such as vomiting and diarrhea, have ended
- Prohibit bare hand contact with ready-to-eat food
- Require at least one employee in a food service establishment to be a certified food protection manager
- Require food service employees to wash their hands
Learn more at http://www.cdc.gov/psr/.
