A multi-factorial risk prioritization framework for food-borne pathogens

The current work is a joint effort between researchers at the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, the University of Guelph and the University of Massachusetts to explore ways in which food-borne risks can be prioritized on the basis of a range of public health, economic and social factors. [...] Central to the proposed framework, and shown in the center of the figure, are four dimensions of risks that are applied in the overall prioritization of the associated risks to society, namely Public Health, Consumer Risk Perceptions and Acceptance, Market-Level Impacts, and Social Sensitivity. [...] To facilitate the comparison of existing risk prioritization frameworks, the review includes an evaluation of each framework’s use of the four proposed dimensions: public health; market level impacts; consumer risk perceptions and acceptance; and social sensitivity of the risk incidence. [...] In contrast to the previous models, the risk governance approach aims at the integration of a variety of scientific, economic and cultural aspects of risk the management process and is not restricted to risks associated with pathogen/food combinations. [...] Furthermore, the EU also highlights the importance of balancing consumer perceptions of risks and benefits with the social risk-benefit distribution plus the overall size of the population(s) at risk/benefit, as opposed to only the adverse effects of microbial food-borne hazards.