National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference 2014

<P>NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2013) estimates that 48 million people get food poisoning each year -1 in 6 Americans - resulting in about 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. Nearly half of all reported foodborne infections occur in children under 15 years of age. Further, it is estimated that kids younger than 4 years old are 4.5 times more likely to acquire bacterial infections from food compared to adults between 20 and 49 years old (CDC, 2013). The National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference 2014 will bring to the fore these issues regarding the most vulnerable populations, and will empower health and food safety educators with the messaging and interventions that can help them address these populations in their own programming and outreach. The National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference 2014 will allow for remote participation and interaction by widening health and food safety educator and student attendance with the addition of technological and media components. The Partnership wants to create a conference "without walls" and an experience that provides optimal engagement of the attendees. The Partnership will accomplish this through a few key activities: live streaming of one or two key plenary presentations; videotaping and post-conference web broadcast of key sessions; development of a conference mobile app that allows attendees to participate in instant polling and instant feedback during conference sessions; development of short videos featuring the stories of health and food safety educators and the impact their work has on the health of people in their communities; and scholarship funding for deserving undergraduate and graduate students who would benefit from attending the conference. The National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference 2014 goals are to advance the knowledge and practice of health and food safety educators in private and public sectors in support of the Healthy People 2020 goals. It is the Partnership for Food Safety Education's goal to increase attitudinal and behavioral modification of safe food handling behaviors in the general public in an effort to reduce the rate of food poisoning and its severe health impacts nationwide. </P>
<P>APPROACH: The Federal government has specifically set goals related to reducing foodborne illness and to changing consumer behavior around safe food handling. The specific and relevant Healthy People 2020 goals are: FS-1: Reduce infections caused by key pathogens transmitted commonly through food FS-5: Increase the proportion of consumers who follow key food safety practices. Research in the field of consumer food safety reveals several gaps that need to be addressed in order for the public health community to meet Healthy People 2020 food safety goals FS-1 and FS-5. The CDC and other federal agencies advocate for a farm-to-fork approach in reducing illness.Specifically, the Partnership for Food Safety Education efforts will address these principal topics during the two day National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference 2014: 1) audiences disproportionately affected by serious foodborne illness and related intervention strategies; 2) areas for focus in reaching Healthy People 2020 goals in consumer safe food handling, including: hand washing, thermometer usage, and safe handling of fresh fruits and vegetables. At the National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference, the Partnership will address these and other topics, and will empower health and food safety educators from across the United States to work to increase consistency of safe food handling behaviors among consumers. Creating an opportunity for information sharing, "improves our understanding of human behaviors and how they are influenced by economic and other incentives in ways that enhance the safety ...of the food supply" (USDA, NIFA, 2014, p.17). The conference will allow for health and food safety educators to, "identify research, education needs, and/or extension needs" regarding consumer food safety education and illness prevention (USDA NIFA, 2014, p.38). The Partnership will make efforts to widen health and food safety educator and student attendance with the addition of technological and media components that make remote participation possible and interactive. At a time of limited travel budgets, the ability to engage community-based educators from where they live or work allows us to truly build and activate the entire national network that supports consumer food safety education. The Partnership wants to create a conference "without walls" and an experience that provides optimal engagement of the attendees. The Partnership will accomplish this through a few key activities: live streaming of one or two key plenary presentations; videotaping and post-conference web broadcast of key sessions; development of a conference mobile app that allows attendees to participate in instant polling and instant feedback during conference sessions; development of short videos featuring the stories of health and food safety educators and the impact their work has on the health of people in their communities; and scholarship funding for deserving undergraduate and graduate students who would benefit from attending the conference. Videotaped conference plenary sessions and short films featuring community-based health and food safety educators would be broadcasted both within the walls of the conference and appear on the conference website for non-attendees and other interested people to view. Live Streaming: Broadcast of one or more key plenary speakers' presentations will provide educators unable to travel due to budget constraints the opportunity to feel a part of the conference, to be present for important conference messaging and to learn more about what is happening in consumer food safety education. These live broadcasts would be heavily promoted with the Partnership's 14,000 BAC Fighters, and with our partners in public and private sectors. Live streaming helps the Partnership develop a concept of one "community" that comes together on the important task of educating consumers about the importance of safe food handling to good health.Mobile Device Application: A conference mobile app will be a planning and engagement tool for conference attendees. With the app the Partnership can create opportunities for attendees to provide instant feedback related to conference content and to pose questions to conference organizers and speakers. An app will also allow attendees to connect with one another, to plan their attendance at conference sessions, and to learn more about conference presenters. The addition of a mobile app will contribute to an interactive conference experience.Short Videos: The development of 1 minute videos will allow the voices of four accomplished and engaged health and food safety educators to share their story at the conference as well as with the public on the conference website. Health and food safety educators will have the opportunity to learn from each other whether they are present or not at the conference, creating an all-inclusive experience. Engaging Future Leaders: The Partnership intends to engage and inspire future food safety leaders by identifying deserving students who show an interest in a future in consumer food safety education research or outreach. The Partnership will offer the opportunity for university undergraduate and graduate students to compete for sixteen student scholarships that will allow them to participate at the conference by waiving their registration fee. Funding from other sources makes it possible for the Partnership to extend travel scholarships (air and hotel) to twelve of the sixteen students, thus allowing the Partnership to extend full scholarships to up to twelve students. Students will be asked to complete an application form and essay, and to submit recommendations from faculty that speak to their interest in the topic, and their future plans to play a role in prevention of foodborne illness in the United States. The Partnership will conduct outreach activities that will engage K-12 classrooms nationwide on the topic of safe food handling and disease prevention leading up to the national conference. The Partnership will publicize through its networks the opportunity for K-12 classrooms to submit questions in a video or social media format. These questions would then be posed to plenary speakers during the conference, with the inquiring classroom featured in a photograph on a large screen at the session. The Partnership's goal is to inspire students in K-12 to learn about preventing food poisoning and to provide a role for younger students that connects them to the national conference. Evaluation is a critical component of consumer food safety education and the Partnership for Food Safety Education has planned for evaluation tools to be built into the conference experience. All conference sessions will include an evaluation form in which participants will be asked to provide feedback at the end of the sessions. Also, with the development of a conference app the Partnership can create opportunities for attendees to provide instant feedback related to conference content, contributing to overall evaluation of the conference and efforts to support health and food safety educators. The Partnership also plans to engage conference attendees pre and post conference to determine the effectiveness of the conference in meeting their needs. </P>