Food Risk Analysis Research Articles

Defining Risk: Hepatitis A Virus in Philippine Shellfish (Oyster and Mussels)

The hepatitis A virus (HAV) endemicity in the Philippines ranges from moderate to high. Despite this, health risks related to local seafood consumption are associated with red tide or mass fish kill. However, government agencies should consider the safety of local shellfish and culture sites to HAV. This article examines the current trends relevant to the presence of HAV along the local shellfish supply chain – including production levels, microbial concentration, consumer behavior, and food safety regulations. Despite the susceptibility of local shellfish to HAV, the study identified crucial data gaps: [1] reliance on bacterial indicators, [2] absence of monitoring records for HAV concentration in local shellfish products and culturing sites, and [3] limited studies regarding the effect of local cooking practices on HAV inactivation. The synthesis of this analysis will guide the national food safety risk managers in addressing the identified data gaps to facilitate a full-blown food risk analysis of HAV in Philippine shellfish.

Analysis of Reports on the Occupational Health and Safety in The Agricultural Industry: A bibliometrix-Aided Approach

Agricultural activities are fundamental to societies, including the planting, growing, harvesting and processing of agricultural crops. However, there are a large number of occupational risks that can arise during the course of agricultural activities. These risks could result in serious injury or even death. This requires introducing and providing the relevant bodies and workers with knowledge, perception and awareness of the risk. The present study assessed the available reports on occupational health and safety using a bibliometric analysis and dimension reduction approach. Briefly, the reports were extracted from SCOPUS database. We identified 943 relevant and available peer-reviewed publications from the Scopus database. These were published between 1956 and 2022. The retrieved documents were analysed with the R-studio based software Bibliometrix. For the analysis, co-occurrences of networks, thematic maps and trending topics were analyzed. The results of the present study show that the time span of the documents ranges from 1956 to 2022 and these documents, including journals, books, book chapters and conference papers, were disseminated in 313 different sources. The estimated annual growth rate of these documents is 6.35%. Even the first paper dates back to the 1950s, the average age of the documents are 10.7. Considering the spatial distribution of the documents, USA topped at the list and was followed by Australia, Brazil, Italy, Canada, UK, and China. It is interesting to note that 'confined spaces' were found to be the trending topic according to the trend topic analysis of the keywords. Also, after the basic keywords (occupational health and safety and agriculture) of the study, ergonomics was the core keyword of the relevant analysis. Critically, the level of co-operation between countries was very low, with a rate of 0.025-0.207 for co-operation between countries (MCPs). For Turkey, the MCP was found to be 0.000. According to the thematic map, the motor theme is composed of two major clusters. One relates to food safety, risk analysis, knowledge and awareness and hygiene. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to identify the key issues in occupational health and safety in the agricultural industry. Therefore, the study has potential to contribute to the field.

Food Risk Analysis: Towards a Better Understanding of "Hazard" and "Risk" in EU Food Legislation.

For risk communication, it is important to understand the difference between "hazard" and "risk". Definitions can be found in Codex Alimentarius and the European Union (EU) General Food Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002. The use of these terms as synonyms or their interchange is a recurrent issue in the area of food safety, despite awareness-raising messages sent by EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) and other interested entities. A quick screening of the EU's food regulations revealed several inconsistencies. Hence, it was considered necessary to further investigate if regulations could act as a source for this problem. A software tool was developed to support the detection and listing of inconsistent translations of "hazard" and "risk" in certain EU food regulations. Subsequently, native-speaking experts working in food safety from each EU country were asked to provide their individual scientific opinion on the prepared list. All data were statistically analysed after applying numerical scores (1-5) describing different levels of consistency. Results showed that the most common problem was the interchange of "hazard" with "risk" and vice versa. This lack of consistency can create confusion that can further translate into misjudgments at food risk assessment and communication levels.

Food Safety Risk Analysis in East African Community: A Cornerstone for an Effective Regional Risk-Based Food Safety System

Food risk analysis remains a major cornerstone that provides a framework for the risk-based food safety system. This paper aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of the food safety system, and the foundational role and opportunities of the risk analysis concept in the East Africa Community (EAC). The study was done through the explorative review of the literature as the best approach to getting broad information on the concept of risk analysis in global food safety and its impact on food safety systems. Through analysis of the relevant literature and previous studies related to global food safety and food safety systems, the approach helped to draw on challenges and opportunities and to reformulate the potential key role of the risk analysis concept in the EAC food safety system. Challenges were identified through the evaluation of the effectiveness of the EAC food safety system with reference to the US- effective food safety model. The role and opportunities of the risk analysis in the EAC food safety system were evaluated against identified challenges, and its implementation feasibility and assets in the EAC food safety system. As results, the EAC food safety system showed many gaps and challenges, and was ineffective. While the risk analysis concept was found a key factor in attributes of the effective food safety system, it could help the EAC food safety system to become effective, and to respond to the current and future food safety needs of both the African continent and the Globe. With many opportunities and potentials in EAC, the risk analysis concept can be integrated into the EAC food safety system. Therefore, a useful and strategic approach as a model of the integration of the risk analysis concept was designed for EAC. It is the establishment of an EAC- Regional Centre of Expertise in Food Risk Analysis (EAC-CREFRA). In addition, the EAC food safety system needs to anchor One Health and multi-factorial food safety management approaches to food safety.

Food Safety-Internationally Agreed Framework.

Food safety is very important to protect the health of consumers. In this manuscript, internationally agreed concepts and requirements of food safety and risk analysis are beiefly explained along with the topics of symposium.

Heterogeneous graph attention network for food safety risk prediction

Food risk analysis technique is of great significance in human health and safety. This paper investigates the issue of food safety risk identification and early warning based on heterogeneous graph attention network. First, the selection of food safety risk heterogeneous indicators (such as food category, hazard, region, etc.) is analyzed, since they are the effective factors to describe risk levels, then a food safety risk assessment index system is constructed based on these factors. Second, a heterogeneous graph attention network is proposed to fuse the heterogeneous risk indicators, resulting in the novel risk profile of food safety. Finally, the proposed heterogeneous graph attention network is implemented to the problem of food safety risk early warning, which could provide some basis of risk management decision. A data set of food detection in China is used to verify the proposed method, the case study results suggest that the proposed risk profile is a valuable way to identify the food safety risk. • The main risk factors affecting food safety are analyzed, and a food safety risk evaluation index system is established. • Heterogeneous graph attention network is used to train heterogeneous data and establish food safety risk reasoning model. • The model can accurately predict the risk level of various kinds of food.

The Sanitary Conditions of Bakeries and Food Safety Practices Assessment of Bakers in Tamale Metropolis, Ghana

There is a lack of research on the safety of bread in Ghana, although it is one of the foods consumed by most Ghanaians daily. The study, therefore, assessed the sanitary conditions of bakeries in the Tamale Metropolis and further evaluated the food safety practices of bakers in these bakeries. The study employed the use of a questionnaire to collect data in 24 carefully selected bakeries and then the food safety practices of bakers in these bakeries. Results showed that 91.7% of the bakeries had bakers wearing protective gears while working. All (100%) the bakeries were free of domestic animals and a visible presence of insects, rodents or vectors. However, 6(25%) bakeries placed their solid waste containers in the bakery premises. Also, 89.5% of the bakers indicated that they always wash their hands with soap and water before working or handling baking ingredients and materials. All (100%) bakers indicated that they check the expiry dates of their bakery ingredients before using them. 29.8% of the bakers, however, did not make it a practice of refrigerating bakery ingredients that require to be stored in the fridge when not in use. In conclusion, most bakeries had good sanitary conditions and were managed in a manner that ensure food safety. Bakers also exhibited a good level of food safety adherence. Managers should continue to ensure that good sanitary standards are followed and food risk analysis concepts like HACCP are implemented in the bakery to check new and complex food safety threats.

Electronic phenotyping of health outcomes of interest using a linked claims-electronic health record database: Findings from a machine learning pilot project.

Claims-based algorithms are used in the Food and Drug Administration Sentinel Active Risk Identification and Analysis System to identify occurrences of health outcomes of interest (HOIs) for medical product safety assessment. This project aimed to apply machine learning classification techniques to demonstrate the feasibility of developing a claims-based algorithm to predict an HOI in structured electronic health record (EHR) data. We used the 2015-2019 IBM MarketScan Explorys Claims-EMR Data Set, linking administrative claims and EHR data at the patient level. We focused on a single HOI, rhabdomyolysis, defined by EHR laboratory test results. Using claims-based predictors, we applied machine learning techniques to predict the HOI: logistic regression, LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator), random forests, support vector machines, artificial neural nets, and an ensemble method (Super Learner). The study cohort included 32 956 patients and 39 499 encounters. Model performance (positive predictive value [PPV], sensitivity, specificity, area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve) varied considerably across techniques. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve exceeded 0.80 in most model variations. For the main Food and Drug Administration use case of assessing risk of rhabdomyolysis after drug use, a model with a high PPV is typically preferred. The Super Learner ensemble model without adjustment for class imbalance achieved a PPV of 75.6%, substantially better than a previously used human expert-developed model (PPV = 44.0%). It is feasible to use machine learning methods to predict an EHR-derived HOI with claims-based predictors. Modeling strategies can be adapted for intended uses, including surveillance, identification of cases for chart review, and outcomes research.

Investments in Food Safety Risk Assessment and Risk Analysis as a Requirement for Robust Food Control Systems: Calling for Regional Centres of Expertise

Risk Assessment is the scientifically-based process that characterizes the possible human health implications of hazards found in food. This scientific approach is part of the risk analysis paradigm that governs the food decision-making process. It is a prerequisite for the development and execution of robust and consistent food safety regulatory decisions. This paper reviews food regulatory decision-making scenarios where risk assessment plays a key role. It discusses challenges associated with the access to capacity and competencies from various disciplines necessary to enable risk assessment and overall risk analysis. The paper illustrates the urgent need for the provision of additional support to capacity building initiatives in this area by means of mutually beneficial resource-sharing with the objective to establish regional and/or sub-regional centres of food regulatory science, including expertise in risk assessment. Regional Centres of Expertise may be the answer to provide the needed competencies and up-to-date tools to operationalize food regulatory systems, where food risk analysis is the foundation of decision-making, as advocated by the guidance of the Codex Alimentarius commission. It may also be the response to support economic regional integration, where food and agrifood trade needs to be supported by the removal of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) constraints and through achieving a more coordinated and harmonious food safety standard setting framework, at the regional level.

Enlisting Supervised Machine Learning in Mapping Scientific Uncertainty Expressed in Food Risk Analysis

Recently, both sociology of science and policy research have shown increased interest in scientific uncertainty. To contribute to these debates and create an empirical measure of scientific uncertainty, we inductively devised two systems of classification or ontologies to describe scientific uncertainty in a large corpus of food safety risk assessments with the help of machine learning (ML). We ask three questions: (1) Can we use ML to assist with coding complex documents such as food safety risk assessments on a difficult topic like scientific uncertainty? (2) Can we assess using ML the quality of the ontologies we devised? (3) And, finally, does the quality of our ontologies depend on social factors? We found that ML can do surprisingly well in its simplest form identifying complex meanings, and it does not benefit from adding certain types of complexity to the analysis. Our ML experiments show that in one ontology which is a simple typology, against expectations, semantic opposites attract each other and support the taxonomic structure of the other. And finally, we found some evidence that institutional factors do influence how well our taxonomy of uncertainty performs, but its ability to capture meaning does not vary greatly across the time, institutional context, and cultures we investigated.

Development of quantitative real-time PCR for detection and enumeration of Enterobacteriaceae

The family Enterobacteriaceae, members of which are widely distributed in the environment, includes many important human pathogens. In this study, a rapid real-time PCR method targeting rplP, coding for L16 protein, a component of the ribosome large subunit, was developed for enumerating Enterobacteriaceae strains, and its efficiency was evaluated using naturally contaminated food products. The rplP-targeted real-time PCR amplified Enterobacteriaceae species with Ct values of 14.0–22.8, whereas the Ct values for non-Enterobacteriaceae species were >30, indicating the specificity of this method for the Enterobacteriaceae. Using a calibration curve of Ct=−3.025 (log CFU/g)+37.35, which was calculated from individual plots of the cell numbers in different concentrations of 5 Enterobacteriaceae species, the rplP-targeted real-time PCR was applied to 51 food samples. A <1log difference between the real-time PCR and culture methods was obtained in a majority of the food samples (81.8%), with good correlation (r2=0.8285). This study demonstrated that the rplP-targeted real-time PCR method could detect and enumerate Enterobacteriaceae species in foods rapidly and accurately, and therefore, it can be used for the microbiological risk analysis of foods.

Challenges in Food Safety as Part of Food Security: Lessons Learnt on Food Safety in a Globalized World

Food safety should accomplish food and nutrition security. A key challenge to scale up food safety globally is to better leverage existing capacity and research working towards evidence-based decisions. At Ghent University since 2009 an annual 3-months international Intensive Training Program on Food Safety, Quality Assurance and Risk Analysis has been organized (www.itpfoodsafety.UGent.be). The trainees were asked to express their opinion on food safety concerns in their country and to select a case study to work on throughout the course. Main food safety issues had to do with bacterial pathogens, pesticide residues and mycotoxins which were challenged by lack of food safety knowledge and appropriate legislation and enforcement by government. They welcomed education and training on these topics in particular to elaborate on control measures including good hygienic practices, implementation of certified food safety management systems and setting of appropriate criteria. A number of topics are highlighted here in particular as these topics were shown to have a common ground of interest by several participants in several countries and throughout the years. These topics include among others safety of street foods, safe milk and cheese production, and risk assessment to control Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli in meat (and other foods). Although some recurring food safety issues could be identified, other topics are of particular concern in selected countries because of specific cultural appropriate eating habits. The world is changing fast. Problems change and the information stream is very intense. Leaders in food security should be aware about food safety as well, and will have to develop an attitude of continuous learning, critical thinking and be given the right tools(“know how”) to develop local solutions to address the emerging societal and environmental challenges to provide sufficient, safe, healthy, nutritious and sustainable produced food to the world's population.

Challenges in Risk Assessment: Quantitative Risk Assessment

The process of risk analysis consists out of three components, risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. These components are internationally well spread by Codex Alimentarius Commission as being the basis for setting science based standards, criteria on food safety hazards, e.g. setting maximum limits of mycotoxins in foodstuffs. However, the technical component risk assessment is hard to elaborate and to understand. Key in a risk assessment is the translation of biological or chemical pathways into a mathematical framework. Within the International Training Program ‘ITP food safety, quality assurance and risk analysis’ of Ghent University, department of Food Safety and Food Quality, we developed for low and middle income countries and emerging countries a training module on risk assessment. In where (semi-) quantitative probabilistic risk assessment calculations or qualitative risk rankings are trained for both microbial and chemical food safety hazards along the agro-food chain. This presentation will explain these methodologies demonstrated with examples from former ITP trainees.

Food Safety, Risk Analysis and Regulatory Science

Food Safety, Risk Analysis and Regulatory Science

Food Risk Analysis Related to Heavy Metals in the Phosphates Exploitation Area of Togo

Food Risk Analysis Related to Heavy Metals in the Phosphates Exploitation Area of Togo

Risk Profile on Non-O157 Verotoxin-Producing Escherichia Coli in Produce, Beef, Milk and Dairy Products in Canada

This risk profile on non-O157 verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli serotypes (non-O157 VTEC) in produce, beef, milk and dairy products in Canada, outlines associated potential public health threats, while identifying areas where additional data are required to inform microbiological risk assessment and risk management action. The following outputs of this risk profile may contribute to risk analysis relating to non-O157 VTEC in Canada: • Beef products, milk and dairy products, and produce are all food commodities associated with non-O157 illness outbreaks. Some non-O157 VTEC may cause foodborne illnesses similar to E. coli O157:H7, however in general, non-O157 VTEC cause less severe illness or lead to asymptomatic infections. In the absence of epidemiological evidence (i.e., the inability to show that the detected bacteria has previously caused illness in humans), the ability to establish the health concern of isolates, is limited. • Non-O157 VTEC serogroups most commonly implicated in human infections differ between countries. In Canada, the top six non-O157 VTEC serogroups associated with serious illness are: O26, O103, O111, O117, O121, and O145. • The dose-response(s) for non-O157 VTEC in beef products, milk and dairy, and produce as groups is currently not possible to determine. • VTEC are defined by the production of verotoxins. Other virulence factors are associated with clinical isolates of non-O157 VTEC and may indicate an increased threat to human health, but a common virulence profile for pathogenic VTEC has not been identified. • The government of Canada commissioned the Federal VTEC Working Group to develop detection and isolation methods for non-O157 VTEC as an initial regulatory response to support the reporting of non-O157 VTEC in foods. A Canadian VTEC method collaboratively developed by Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is being used to detect the presence of non-O157 VTEC in food. 1 Angela Catford, Valentin Kouame, Amalia Martinez-Perez, Alexander Gill, Enrico Buenaventura, Helene Couture and Jeffrey M Farber: Risk Profile on Non-O157 Verotoxin-Producing Escherichia Coli in Produce, Beef, Milk and Dairy Products in Canada ARTICLE Int Food Risk Anal J, 2014, 4:21 | doi: 10.5772/59208 International Food Risk Analysis Journal

食品安全政策における適切な保護の水準および相対的安全性の重要性

The Japanese government's manual regarding to food safety policy incorporates the concept of “appropriate level of protection” (or “level of acceptable risk”) in the framework of food risk analysis, according to the FAO/WHO guidelines and the WTO/SPS regulations. However, when defining specific policies as to food safety (such as the establishment of standard limits for radioactive contaminants in food) and providing information to consumers, it is not clear whether the appropriate level of protection has established been. In other words, the appropriate level of protection is not necessarily given an active role in the real food safety policy of our country. Without a better definition of the terms, consumers will not accurately understand food risks and may be distrustful of the government in the future..The term, “appropriate level of protection” should definitely be adopted and utilized explicitly in Japan's food safety policy. The term should be explained to consumers for them to realize not only that the food safety measures are based on scientific evaluation, but also that the concept of “food safety” involves normative judgments. In addition, the definition of “food safety” should incorporate the “appropriate level of protection” so that the term “safe” means “relatively safe.” Furthermore, the definition of “appropriate level of protection” should be included in the Food Safety Basic Act.

Application of the BRAFO tiered approach for benefit–risk assessment to case studies on heat processing contaminants

The aim of the European Funded Project BRAFO (benefit–risk analysis of foods) project was to develop a framework that allows quantitative comparison of human health risks and benefits of foods based on a common scale of measurement. This publication describes the application of the BRAFO methodology to three different case studies: the formation of acrylamide in potato and cereal based products, the formation of benzo(a)pyrene through smoking and grilling of meat and fish and the heat-treatment of milk. Reference, alternative scenario and target population represented the basic structure to test the tiers of the framework.Various intervention methods intended to reduce acrylamide in potato and cereal products were evaluated against the historical production methods. In conclusion the benefits of the acrylamide-reducing measures were considered prevailing.For benzo(a)pyrene, three illustrated alternative scenarios were evaluated against the most common smoking practice. The alternative scenarios were assessed as delivering benefits, introducing only minimal potential risks.Similar considerations were made for heat treatment of milk where the comparison of the microbiological effects of heat treatment, physico-chemical changes of milk constituents with positive and negative health effects was assessed. In general, based on data available, benefits of the heat treatment were outweighing any risks.

Bayesian nonparametric model with clustering individual co-exposure to pesticides found in the French diet

This work introduces a specific application of Bayesian nonparametric statistics to the food risk analysis framework. The goal was to determine the cocktails of pesticide residues to which the French population is simultaneously exposed through its current diet in order to study their possible combined effects on health through toxicological experiments. To do this, the joint distribution of exposures to a large number of pesticides, which we called the co-exposure distribution, was assessed from the available consumption data and food contamination analyses. We proposed modelling the co-exposure using a Dirichlet process mixture based on a multivariate Gaussian kernel so as to determine groups of individuals with similar co-exposure patterns. Posterior distributions and the optimal partition were computed through a Gibbs sampler based on stick-breaking priors. The study of the correlation matrix of the sub-population co-exposures will be used to define the cocktails of pesticides to which they are jointly exposed at high doses. To reduce the computational burden due to the high data dimensionality, a random-block sampling approach was used. In addition, we propose to account for the uncertainty of food contamination through the introduction of an additional level of hierarchy in the model. The results of both specifications are described and compared.

International Research Trends Regarding Risk Analysis

The framework of risk analysis is internationally recognized principle for food safety management. In this article, the previous researches regarding food safety are collected from six international journals including Food Control, Food Policy and Risk Analysis, and they are classified according to three elements of risk analysis-risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. From these results, it is reviewed what are achieved and what are further demanded to proceed food safety administration based on risk analysis.Roles of social scientists for food risk analysis are also discussed. One of the important roles is to provide data and make evaluations regarding social and economic impacts of risk reduction options.