Quantitative risk assessment for bacterial community in residential kitchens

Abstract

Health risks posed by bacteria in residential kitchens have been underappreciated in public opinions despite the fact that residential kitchens are a significant hotspot of foodborne diseases. Previous studies on quantitative health risk assessment for real residential kitchens are limited. To this end, the present study first characterized the bacterial communities in 13 residential kitchens in different cities across China with the nanopore sequencing technology. We found that while the overall relative abundance of the 18 detected pathogens was low (5.6%), the potential health risks posed by the pathogens were not neglectable. The pathogens were associated with 17 diseases that affect more than 7 body systems. We selected 3 representative pathogens, i.e., Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella enterica and quantified the health risks via the quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) framework. It is shown the health risks on most detected surfaces were above the acceptable safety target (10−6) with those on handles being the highest. While common disinfectant-containing household detergents are seemingly capable of reducing health risks to an acceptable level, developing green and labor-saving disinfecting techniques is needed.