Systematic Review of Literature on Pork

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: There is a need to start identifying, appraising and summarizing the large quantities of food safety research data so that decision-makers can access timely information on the most relevant scientific literature. This can be accomplished by utilizing evidence-based systematic review methodologies that have been used successfully in other health disciplines. Current and future Salmonella public health risk assessment will benefit from the proposed systematic review which will describe what literature is available about the epidemiology of Salmonella in the pork chain. Further this systematic review will identify areas where research is repetitive or lacking, and can be used as a resource allocation tool to 'fill in the gaps' in risk assessment models.

<P> APPROACH: Experimental Plan: The lead person, from Iowa State University who will coordinate the review. An advisory team will be made up of technical experts, industry experts from the pre-and post harvest environments and international participants. The review team. The review team will consist of a lead person and two research technicians. The advisory team. The advisory team will include a systematic review expertise, a content expertise in swine production and food safety and a content expert in microbiology and food safety and 3 collaborators with expertise in Salmonella and / or swine husbandry from the USA, Canada and EU will be approached for participation.will be approached for participation. The research question(s) will be determined through consensus between the review team and the advisory team. Specific search terms to identify potentially relevant literature will be developed by the advisory team and encompass the population and the outcome . The terms will be entered into medical and agricultural databases. Relevance screening. Structured questions will be used to screen each abstract for relevance to the review and to ensure that the abstract describes primary research. Two reviewers will screen each abstract, with disagreements resolved by consensus. The list of the relevant citations will be forwarded to the advisory team for input into whether all relevant literature has been identified. <P> Quality assessment. Full publications for relevant abstracts will be obtained. Each publication will undergo critical appraisal by 2 reviewers to ensure that a minimum quality standard has been met. Disagreement will be resolved by consensus. <P> Data extraction. The following data to be extracted from all studies Characteristics of the study population, unit of allocation of the experimental units, description of the intervention and outcome, diagnostic methods to determine the outcome, statistical analysis and results. This review will look for evidence of introduction, maintenance and amplification of Salmonella up to the end of primary processing of the carcass it is unlikely the review outcome will lend itself to traditional meta-analysis methods. Data will be downloaded from TrialStat into Stata for statistical analysis if appropriate. <P> Report. A written report will be prepared and circulated to the advisory team for comment on the results and on applicability of the results under commercial conditions and the results submitted for peer-review publication. The content of the report will be a review of the pork chain epidemiology focusing on primary research describing evidence for: <OL> <LI> Location in the pork chain of Salmonella introduction in the pre- harvest area <LI>Location in the pork chain of Salmonella amplification in the pre- harvest area <LI>A description of current available research reports and critical evaluation of the information contributed to understanding of pork chain Salmonella epidemiology pre-harvest. This summation will involve identification of study types currently being used to study the epidemiology of Salmonella in the pork chain and their evidentiary value