NCFEDA North Carolina Foodborne Events Data Integration and Analysis Tool

A safe and secure food supply is critical to our national security. The recent string of food recalls and foodborne illnesses has created a sense of urgency in addressing gaps in the food safety system, and made safe food a high priority for the nation. Early detection and rapid response are challenges that must be met to minimize the impact of a contamination event— whether unintentional or the result of a terrorist act. Researchers from University of North Carolina’s Center for Logistics and Digital Strategy (CLDS) at Kenan-Flagler Business School and the North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness (NCPHP) in the Gillings School of Global Public Health have forged a collaboration to improve food safety in North Carolina. The NCFOODSAFE project bridges existing gaps in current North Carolina food safety systems by developing a new informatics tool, the North Carolina Foodborne Events Data Integration and Analysis Tool (NCFEDA), that provides situational awareness and intelligence about an intrinsically complex and dynamic process—the detection of and response to a foodborne disease outbreak. The project is informed by an understanding of the informationsharing and communication structures among government agencies and personnel responsible for regulating and overseeing the state’s food safety system and its interplay with other jurisdictions. NCFEDA was built to demonstrate the potential of situational awareness—created through real-time data fusion, analytics, visualization, and real-time communication—to reduce latency of response to foodborne disease outbreaks by North Carolina public health personnel. The capabilities of NCFEDA were demonstrated using a use case that involves one or more clusters of unknown illness cases presenting symptoms of gastrointestinal problems which serve as a potential indicator of an ongoing foodborne disease outbreak. This project is a first step toward the eventual integration of new capabilities within current North Carolina surveillance and response systems. NCFEDA has been designed to align with current national strategic plans for food safety and its results will serve as a model for similar efforts in other states.