Reflections on food safety and risk perception

Bird’s-eye view of a colourful food market in Western Bengal, where 70% of people depend on agriculture (photo credit: Krishnasis Ghosh/Bioversity International).

In a recent blog post (11 April) published by the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, Delia Grace, a food safety expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), discusses food safety and the psychology of risk perception.

She notes that when it comes to food safety, what consumers perceive to be risky and what experts consider to be the most important risks are often not the same.

Citing the example of genetically modified foods, Grace says: “. . . there is remarkable consistency from scientists and expert bodies that genetically modified foods are safe to eat, and yet in many countries, most of the public are skeptical about them.”

The blog post, Healthier food supply: what you worry about and what makes you sick is not the same, acknowledges the complexity of risk perception and the difference in how experts and the general public perceive risks and food safety.

Better evidence can play a part in countering the natural tendency to misperceive risk, she says. An example of such evidence is a new policy brief on food safety, Policy Options for a Healthier Food Supply, which reviews food safety issues that are critical to poor and vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries.

 

New study published on risk-based assessment of pork safety in Nagaland, Northeast India

A woman feeds her pigs in Nagaland, India (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

The first risk-based study of food safety in the pork value chain in Nagaland, Northeast India has identified several important microbiological hazards and assessed their impacts on human health.

Nagaland has the highest density of pigs in India and the highest pork consumption levels. Therefore, information on pathogens in pigs and pork in the region, and their health impacts, is useful for decision-making on interventions aimed at improving food safety and safeguarding the health of consumers.

The study investigated samples from pigs and pork sourced at slaughter in urban and rural environments, and at retail, to assess a selection of food-borne hazards. In addition, consumer exposure was characterized using information about hygiene and practices related to handling and preparing pork.

The food-borne pathogens identified include Listeria spp. and Brucella suis. A risk assessment framework assessed the health impacts of three representative hazards or hazards proxies, namely, Enterobacteriaceae, Taenia solium cysticercosis and antibiotic residues.

The study found that by using participatory methods and rapid diagnostics alongside conventional methods, risk assessment can be used in a resource-scarce setting.

The findings are published in a special issue on food safety and public health in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

View the article

Citation
Fahrion AS, Jamir L, Richa K, Begum S, Rutsa V, Ao S, Padmakumar VP, Deka RP and Grace D. 2014. Food-safety hazards in the pork chain in Nagaland, North East India: Implications for human health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 11(1): 403-417.

 

ILRI scientists present at Africa 2013 ecohealth conference

Smallholder livestock farming in the highlands of Ethiopia (ILRI/Apollo Habtamu).

Over 15 scientists from the Food Safety and Zoonoses program at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are among 250 participants attending the Africa 2013 Ecohealth Conference in Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire. The ILRI team will give 20 oral presentations during two parallel sessions on risk analysis in ecohealth as well as five poster presentations.

The general objective of the conference, which runs from 1 to 5 October 2013, is to contribute to the sharing of knowledge among researchers, health practitioners and policymakers on integrated and transdisciplinary studies that are related to health within the framework of adaptations to global changes.

This is the first-ever joint conference of leading African and intercontinental scientific societies dedicated or working to improve public health and ecology. The conference is jointly organized by the following institutions:

• Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS)
• Communauté de Pratiques en Ecosanté de l’Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre (COPES-AOC)
• Ecohealth Network of East and Southern Africa
• International Association for Ecology  and Health
• University of Benin
• University of Côte d’Ivoire

More information is available on the conference website.

 

International conference features risk assessment of raw milk consumption in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Sale of raw milk at Port-Bouët market in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (photo credit: ILRI/Sylvie Mireille Kouamé-Sina).

Every day, some 652 consumers of raw milk in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire are exposed to the risk of gastro-intestinal infection caused by harmful milk-borne bacteria, a study has shown. The study was done under the collaborative Safe Food, Fair Food project which is led by International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

As is the case in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, milk in the informal or traditional market in Côte d’Ivoire is often sold raw. Many consumers routinely boil milk before drinking it, thus eliminating the health risk presented by milk-borne pathogens. However, some choose to consume the milk raw without any form of heat treatment. Unhygienic handling and storage of milk can also compromise the quality of raw milk sold to consumers.

Sylvie Mireille Kouamé-Sina, an Ivorian researcher at the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS), led the study on bacterial risk assessment of informally marketed milk in Abidjan.

Just over half (51.6%) of sampled milk consumers in Abidjan reportedly drank their milk raw. The main disease-causing bacteria isolated from the marketed raw milk were E. coli, Enterococcus sp. and Staphylococcus aureus. These species were found in about 58% of samples of informally marketed milk.

A risk model revealed that consumers of raw milk in Abidjan have a 30% chance of drinking milk that is not microbiologically safe. For this reason, boiling of informally marketed milk is recommended as a risk-mitigation strategy against milk-borne pathogenic bacteria.

Kouamé-Sina presented these findings during a poster session at the 5th Congress of European Microbiologists (FEMS 2013) which was held on 21-25 July 2013 in Leipzig, Germany. The international conference brought together 2270 participants from 70 countries across all continents. Africa was represented by 27 participants from Côte d’Ivoire (1), Egypt (2), Nigeria (11), South Africa (12) and Tunisia (1).

Various topics on the latest advances in microbiology and biotechnology were discussed, including microbial food safety, trends in pathogen monitoring, viral ecology and evolution, new perspectives in bioenergy, and microbial interactions and climate change.

“The conference was a very interesting forum for thousands of international microbiologists from Europe and around the world to assess the current status of techniques used in microbiology,” said Kouamé-Sina.

“It was especially useful for young scientists as it allowed for interaction with leading researchers and exchange of knowledge and information on the latest advances in microbiology,” she added.

View the poster, Bacterial risk assessment of milk produced locally in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

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Read more about ILRI’s research on food safety in informal markets.

 

Vietnamese journal publishes special issue on risk assessment in health research in Vietnam

The Vietnamese Journal of Preventive Medicine has published a special edition on risk assessment for health research in Vietnam. The June 2013 special edition is a compilation of over 10 original research papers on the application of risk analysis to the management of animal, human and environmental health in Vietnam. The subject of training and capacity development in health risk assessment in Vietnam is also featured.

Risk analysis is a scientific, risk-based approach to assessing the health effects and economic impacts of various hazards (for example, disease-causing microorganisms in food or chemical pollutants in water) in order to develop appropriate interventions to mitigate the health risks posed by the hazards, thus ensuring that people, animals and the environment are safe.

Risk analysis comprises three components: risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. In the developed world, risk assessment is widely applied and used as a tool for risk management, thanks to the availability and accessibility of large databases of diseases.

However, many developing countries – including Vietnam – do not have the research data and risk analysis expertise needed to be able to adequately inform policymaking on risk-based approaches to health management.

The research papers featured in the special issue provide insights into the current status of research on risk analysis in Vietnam, specifically, risk assessment of the health impacts of Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes in the pork value chain in Hanoi, arsenic contamination in drinking water in Hanam Province, dioxin contamination in food in Da Nang and pesticide residues in farms in Thai Binh.

The work is a result of the collaborative efforts of the Vietnamese Journal of Preventive Medicine and the Center for Public Health and Ecosystem Research (CENPHER) at the Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH).

Among the co-authors of the research papers are Delia Grace and Lucy Lapar, scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and Hung Nguyen-Viet who leads research at CENPHER-HSPH and is a joint appointee of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and ILRI.

The papers are in Vietnamese with abstracts available in English. Listed below are the titles of the papers.

• Risk assessment and health research in Vietnam (editorial)
• Risk assessment of Salmonella in pork in Hanoi, Vietnam
• Food-borne hazards in a transforming pork value chain in Hanoi: Basis for future risk assessments
• Health risk due to exposure to chlorpyrifos for farmers in Thai Binh: Probabilistic risk assessment
• Risk assessment of arsenic contamination in tube-well drinking water in Hanam Province
• Environmental health risk assessment of dioxin in foods in Da Nang dioxin hot spot
• Prevalence of Salmonella contamination in pig and pork at farms and slaughterhouses in the northern provinces of Vietnam
• Air pollution as a health issue in Hanoi, Vietnam: An opportunity for intensified research to inform public policy
• Environmental health risk communication: Concept, principles and challenges
• Training and research programs in health risk assessment in Vietnam
• Task force of risk assessment for food safety in Vietnam: Linking science to policy to increase food safety and livelihood generation of the poor farmer
• Research projects on health risk assessment implemented by the Hanoi School of Public Health

The special edition also includes news on risk assessment training in Vietnam and reviews of two books on risk assessment.

For more information on this special edition, please contact Hung Nguyen-Viet (hung.nguyen @ unibas.ch).