An assessment of the ability of routine restaurant inspections to predict food-borne outbreaks in Miami-Dade County, Florida

This study sought to determine the usefulness of restaurant inspections in predicting food-borne outbreaks in Miami-Dade County, Fla. Inspection reports of restaurants with outbreaks in 1995 (cases; n = 51) were compared with those of randomly selected restaurants that had no reported outbreaks (con...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of public health (1971) 2001-05, Vol.91 (5), p.821-823
Main Authors: Cruz, MA, Katz, DJ, Suarez, JA
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air. Soil. Water. Waste. Feeding
Analysis of Variance
Biological and medical sciences
Case-Control Studies
Confidence intervals
Disease control
Disease Outbreaks - prevention & control
Environment. Living conditions
Epidemics
Epidemiology
Facility Regulation and Control
Florida
Food contamination & poisoning
Food safety
Foodborne diseases
Foodborne Diseases - prevention & control
Forecasting
Humans
Illnesses
Inspections
Logistic Models
Medical sciences
Miami-Dade County
Odds Ratio
Prevention
Public health
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Quality Assurance, Health Care
Regulatory agencies
Restaurants
Restaurants - standards
Sanitation
USA
Violations
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Summary:This study sought to determine the usefulness of restaurant inspections in predicting food-borne outbreaks in Miami-Dade County, Fla. Inspection reports of restaurants with outbreaks in 1995 (cases; n = 51) were compared with those of randomly selected restaurants that had no reported outbreaks (controls; n = 76). Cases and controls did not differ by overall inspection outcome or mean number of critical violations. Only 1 critical violation--evidence of vermin--was associated with outbreaks (odds ratio = 3.3; 95% confidence interval = 1.1, 13.1). Results of restaurant inspections in Miami-Dade County did not predict outbreaks. If these findings are representative of the situation in other jurisdictions, inspection practices may need to be updated.
ISSN:0090-0036
1541-0048
DOI:10.2105/AJPH.91.5.821