Food Safety Institute of

the Americas

Integrating Food Safety Education, Information, Communication,

and Outreach in the Americas
 Concept Paper

Goals and Benefits

Today people can consume new products from different climates and
enjoy traditional seasonal favorites year round. But the explosive
growth of the international food marketplace also brings the possibility
for unsafe food to reach much larger populations. Countries are now
more dependent on each other’s safeguards to guarantee their citizens
a wholesome food supply and protect the public health of citizens
throughout the Americas.

The nations of the Americas make up a regional community ever more

closely entwined in the challenge of ensuring food safety and security.
An open and effective exchange of information and education on food
safety risks and on how to control those risks can play a critical role in
improving the food safety and public health of the region.

To address these concerns, USDA has established a Food Safety

Institute of the Americas (FSIA) to bring together the multifaceted
food safety resources within the Western Hemisphere in order to
address critical issues in regional research and development,
information and education, and policy harmonization. The institute will
coordinate programs that focus on food safety related to practices that
create the opportunity for increased microbiological and unsanitary
conditions to occur in food products from the farm to the table.

We plan in this project to enlist the resources of the international

regulatory, academic, public health, industrial, and consumer
communities at all levels to set food safety goals and priorities, to
harmonize and better distribute our existing assets, and to eradicate
the weaknesses we find within our current food protection systems.
We envision the FSIA not as a traditional educational facility, but
rather as an institution that can harness and draw on the immense
expertise, scholarship, and experience of the region’s food specialists.
This proposal envisions a collaborative, multi-organizational effort
involving partnerships with Western Hemisphere governments’ animal
health and public health institutions, industry, international
organizations, and academic institutions.

The FSIA can be an innovative mechanism to drive the coordination of

the planning, prioritizing, and delivery of food safety education,
information, and communication in our regional marketplace. Such a

Food Safety Institute of the Americas 1

mechanism could multiply effective leveraging of resources, minimize
duplication, provide greater access, and provide for more efficient
delivery of food safety information and education at lower costs.

The partnership and collaboration among FSIA member institutions

and organizations will significantly contribute to a reasoned dialogue
about food safety and security issues of concern. Such an organization
can also promote the development of science-based international food
safety standards. The common language of science will serve to
enhance understanding of the policies and procedures within the
activities of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The development of
the FSIA and the outreach activities of Codex can synergize the
improvement of public health in all communities in the Americas.

The FSIA will direct its attention to the development of educational and
informational programs needed to meet the unique needs of countries
within the region. However, the FSIA can also provide an important
element of technical assistance beyond educational efforts by helping
countries look at their complete farm-to-table food safety systems. By
helping FSIA member countries and institutions conduct
comprehensive self-analysis of their systems, the technical expertise
of the FSIA can be brought to their priority food safety issues.

Participants need to work together to ensure that all governments

understand the importance of cooperation in ensuring food safety and
that all countries are able to fully participate in international policy
making.

In the Americas today, the adequacy of national agricultural health

and food safety assessment services varies significantly with regard to
regulatory mechanisms, technical capacity, and overall institutional
sustainability. A 2001 Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on
Agriculture (IICA) analysis of 31 developing countries in the Americas
pointed up a substantial difference in the level of advancement with
regard to these three components. The lack of institutional
sustainability was the most notable—and largest limiting factor—in
forging national food safety services that can address emerging
threats and opportunities.

The goal of this effort will be the establishment of a viable, self-

sustaining organization that will harmonize and seed food safety
education, information, and communication efforts throughout the
Americas. FSIA will provide major outreach activities to identify,

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develop, and coordinate educational programs and promote the
development of international food safety standards.
Overall, the FSIA will help to:
ƒ Identify the region’s existing food safety programs
ƒ Provide the region with greater access to food safety information
and the technical assistance necessary to ensure the safety of
meat, poultry, and egg products
ƒ Meld food safety information, communications, and educational
efforts into a coordinated activity that will minimize duplication
and distribute resources among FSIA partners
ƒ Promote the activities of the Codex Alimentarius Commission to
bring about standardization of food safety requirements
ƒ Act as a forum for scientific discussion relevant to food safety
and international standards in the Americas
ƒ Provide more efficient delivery of information and education at
lower costs
ƒ Encourage and support development of science-based

agreements that strengthen national and local economies

ƒ Meet the critical needs in the region for basic management,

leadership, and communication skills.

FSIA Colleges

The FSIA is considering establishing major food safety areas of interest

into “colleges” or subject matter areas and entrust their stewardship to
centers of academic and professional expertise. While a single
university might, for example, be selected to assume primary
responsibility for oversight of a specific field, FSIS will encourage the
establishment of consortiums and partnerships to nurture each area.
The FSIA will seek to tap into existing networks of universities and
organizations within North, South, and Central America and the
Caribbean.
In our present planning, the FSIA is considering nine colleges when
fully operational. These would address the most pressing needs of the
region. At present, we envision these colleges to be: (1) the Codex
Alimentarius Commission, (2) Regulatory Foundation Studies, (3) Food
Security, (4) Manufactured Foods, (5) Public Health Studies, (6)
Animal and Food Production Studies, (7) Retail Programs, (8)
Laboratory Studies, and (9) Consumer Education and Information

Food Safety Institute of the Americas 3

Programs. A brief description of each of these subject matter areas
follows:

ƒ Codex: This college would offer programs and materials to

address the unique needs of individuals and governments
involved in Codex activities or those who desire to have a
greater understanding of international standards and guidelines,
their development, and related materials.

ƒ Regulatory Foundation Studies: This college would offer basic

training and education programs for government inspection and
compliance officials. Topics could include import program
equivalency, microbiology, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control
Point (HACCP) system principles, sanitation, prerequisite
programs, corrective actions, and verification.

ƒ Public Health Studies: Public health professionals inside and

outside governments would be the main target audience for this
college. Programs would serve to enhance the understanding of
risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication;
epidemiology; surveillance; traceback; and foodborne disease
training.

ƒ Food Security: This college would address concerns about food

security and would be designed for a wide audience of
government and private and public health personnel. Programs
and information would include detecting and preventing threats
to the safety of the food supply.

ƒ Manufactured Foods: Programs in this college would address the

needs of government regulators and private sector food
manufacturing personnel including small production facilities.
The focus would be on enhancing safe food production practices
and practical programs in areas such as HACCP plan
development, hazard analysis and critical control point
identification, validation, sanitation, and recordkeeping.

ƒ Animal and Food Production Studies: This college would focus on

topics of interest to the producer community as well as
practicing veterinarians and governments. Topics could include
on-farm production, quality assurance programs, farm bio-
security, sanitation, and the role producers have in improving
the safety of food.

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 ƒ Retail Programs: This college would focus on the food safety
concerns of retail sector personnel. Topics could include
personnel hygiene, cross-contamination, time and temperature
controls, FDA Food Code standards, and other retail issues.

ƒ Laboratory Studies: This college would enhance the expertise of

governmental and nongovernmental laboratory personnel and
provide food safety courses and information on basic laboratory
skills, safety, analytical methods, and quality assurance.

ƒ Consumer Education and Information Programs: This college

would address the food safety issues and concerns of the
average consumer. Topics would concentrate on food safety in
the home and how governments and the private sector can
deliver that information in a useful and effective manner. The
college would involve educational programs already in place,
such as Fight BAC!® and Thermy™.

Potential Participating Organizations and Institutions

There are many organizations—academic, governmental, and

nongovernmental—with wide-ranging expertise that would make them
potential partners in the development and implementation of the FSIA.
The region has a number of scientific food safety and academic
organizations that represent established networks that can do much to
enhance the program. Such organizations have missions and visions
that provide solid foundations for the FSIA to build upon.

Program Development

FSIA partners will develop programs, materials, and courses with an

emphasis on filling gaps in existing food safety knowledge rather than
duplicating information that already exists. It will, therefore, be
incumbent on the Institute and its partners to survey what programs
and courses already exist, incorporate these existing programs into the
curriculum to the extent possible, and devote the greatest share of
resources to where the information need is the greatest.

Further, this survey can become a component of a broader and more

comprehensive self-analysis of a country’s farm-to-table food safety
system. Therefore, a program of technical assistance can be
developed that will address critical food safety infrastructure while also
enhancing the expertise of the people within that system.

Food Safety Institute of the Americas 5

Because academic institutions throughout the region will serve as key
participants, the FSIA intends to go beyond offering individual
educational courses and information programs. Courses and materials
can be organized into curricula for continuing education and
certification as well as for creation of formal undergraduate and
graduate degree programs in the area of food safety. Although these
programs cannot be developed immediately, they can be designed and
built incrementally as the FSIA begins to mature. It is important to
identify such existing courses and programs before beginning to
develop new ones within the FSIA.

For example, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is in the

process of developing a Master’s Program in Food Safety expected to
be launched in 8 months. This could become an important part of the
FSIA program and serve as a model for additional course offerings.
PAHO has indicated an interest and willingness to collaborate with
FSIA as the two efforts develop.

Funding

The creation of the FSIA needs the support of many individuals and
organizations to deliver an effective, efficient, and successful outreach
program. Human efforts, however, require a substantial investment of
funds if long-term growth of the FSIA is to be sustained. U.S. Federal
agencies such as the Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Food
and Drug Administration are restricted to the degree to which they can
provide monetary support for projects such as FSIA. Therefore, the
program cannot rely solely on Federal dollars to survive. Similarly,
academic institutions may be significantly restricted in the support
they can provide despite their enthusiasm and recognition of the
program’s merits.

Therefore, the FSIA must focus on becoming a self-sustaining outreach

program. Long-term, the nongovernmental organizations and
institutions collaborating on the creation of the FSIA must be prepared
to provide a share of the monetary support.

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Planning

There should be a long-term, 3- to 5-year plan including goals,

objectives, and action items for creating an effective and self-
sustaining Food Safety Institute of the Americas.

Evaluation

No program can flourish without constant attention to the strengths

and weaknesses that appear as it begins to evolve. Clearly, program
evaluation must play a critical role in the long-term success and
sustainability of the FSIA proposal.

Such continuing evaluations must be built into the structure of the

FSIA to ensure that the program is constantly assessed, that there is a
clear opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of the outreach
effort, and that there is continuing improvement in the products and
services that the FSIA provides.

Summary

The FSIA is an ambitious program, and its development will be

challenging. A successful FSIA will contribute to improving food safety
in the Americas by serving as a forum and resource for scientific
information on food safety. It will provide access to information
necessary to ensure the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products and
the possible transport of diseases of concern. It will provide to its
participants:

1. Technical assistance to address critical problems within the

overall food safety system and methods to help solve those
problems;

2. Public health information on foodborne outbreaks and emerging

diseases in humans;

3. Current disease status affecting human health in different areas;

4. Information on new human illness outbreaks, including new and

emerging diseases; and

5. Current research being done on food safety, food security, and

public health.

Food Safety Institute of the Americas 7

Moreover, the FSIA will help establish important networks and working
relationships among the collaborating countries through regular
interaction of food safety and regulatory officials; researchers; public
health officials; meat, poultry, and egg processors and producers;
consumers; and animal producers. Enhancing and fostering these
communication networks are critically important in managing food
safety concerns region-wide and improving understanding about
requirements for imported and exported products.

Finally, the FSIA will serve to integrate dissimilar food safety

information, communication, and educational efforts into a coordinated
and unified activity. Under this program, an educational offering in
food safety at one institution would be available to the entire FSIA
community and be linked to other programs in other institutions. Such
collaboration will minimize duplication and leverage resources
collectively among the FSIA partners in a way that will go beyond what
their individual personnel and funding sources can achieve alone.

The FSIA will blend the important technical assistance with building the
expertise of the people within each country’s food safety chain.
Participants need to work together to ensure that all governments
understand the importance of cooperation in assuring food safety and
that all countries are able to fully participate in international policy
making.

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 Appendix

FSIA Development Activities and Measures

Goal

The goal of the FSIA is to improve public health in the Americas by

expanding the dissemination of science-based food safety knowledge
throughout the region.

Outcome

The outcome of this effort will be the establishment of a viable, self-

sustaining Food Safety Institute of the Americas that brings together
disparate food safety resources in an active partnership focused on:

1. Institutionalizing, coordinating, and harmonizing food safety

education, information, and communication in the region, and

2. Promoting the development of science-based food safety standards

throughout the Americas.

Activity 1: Establish the Institute FY 2005

Measures
ƒ Identify and invite member institutions.

ƒ Conduct a needs assessment and course survey.

ƒ Complete a draft strategic plan and develop a final strategic

plan of vision, goals, objectives, action items, and priorities.

ƒ Determine funding needs and sources based on the plan.

Activity 2: Build the FSIA Infrastructure FY 2005

Measures
ƒ Begin planning/discussions among colleges of programs,
modules, information, and curriculum to be offered within
their subject area.
ƒ Identify food safety information programs that exist among
the FSIA partners and identify gaps where materials do not
exist.
ƒ Designate a partner to create and maintain a web presence
that reflects decisions of the FSIA and illustrates the FSIA
structure.
ƒ Identify/develop plans for technology components needed.
ƒ Establish permanent funding for the FSIA.

Food Safety Institute of the Americas 9

Activity 3: Program Evaluation/Growth FY 2006 and beyond
Measures
ƒ Establish high-priority FSIA colleges as well as the lead
organizations or universities for each FSIA college.
ƒ Extend topical areas to food safety beyond meat, poultry, and
eggs.
ƒ Offer programs under the FSIA colleges.
ƒ Create a multi-level evaluation program to ensure that
programs meet needs, change behavior, and provide a return
on investment.
ƒ Expand partnerships to enhance the diverse nature of the
FSIA by incorporating additional programs and links to food
safety programs.
ƒ Maintain and enhance the self-sustaining nature of the FSIA.

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