VTPEH 6123

Food Systems Approaches to Food Safety

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

Every year, over 48 million people experience a foodborne illness. In this course you will learn how foodborne illnesses are investigated, and how outbreaks are traced through complex food systems back to the contaminated food. By conducting patient interviews, you will gain practical experience in solving foodborne disease outbreaks. You will also contribute to preventing foodborne outbreaks in our community by working with local food processors to reduce food safety risks.

Prerequisites REF-FA25/Corequisites REF-FA25 VTPEH 6121, VTPEH 6122 or equivalent. Corequisites: None.

Enrollment Priority REF-FA25 Enrollment limited to: MPH students; others with permission of instructor.

Last 4 terms offered (None)

Outcomes REF-FA25

• Identify food safety risks throughout specific farm-to-fork food systems
• Describe relevant disease surveillance systems and their roles in outbreak surveillance and detection
• Acquire practical investigation skills by collecting data for use in real-life foodborne disease investigations
• Implement root cause analyses to facilitate foodborne disease outbreak investigations
• Synthesize data of recent national foodborne disease outbreaks help support prevention (via policy change, systems change, education, etc.)

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