An Analysis of restaurant food safety violations: human factors, non-human factors, and food-borne illness

An estimated 76 million food-borne illnesses occur in the United States each year, causing 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Food safety is an increasingly important topic to governmental food regulators, not only in trying to reduce the number of illnesses from contaminated food. Governmental regulators also are becoming aware of the vulnerability of the food supply chain as a target for bioterrorism. Recommendations have been developed to protect the U. S. food supply from terrorism, but little of the research and recommendations relate to the food-service level. Eighty percent of reported cases of food-borne disease occur in food-service establishments. The results of health inspections over six months in the Las Vegas, NV, area were analyzed to determine whether violations were due to human or non-human factors. Human factors were defined as cross-contamination, time and temperature abuse, and poor personal hygiene. The non-human factors were environmental violations, such as poor maintenance and lack of facilities. The human factors can be improved by developing proper training systems and monitoring food safety practices by supervisors. The data show that human factors were responsible for 62.8% of violations cited by health inspectors. Upon reinspection, 97.4% of food-service establishments that had received a grade of less than A had corrected the violations and received an A grade. This shows that effective education can dramatically improve violations due to human factors. This establishes a significant foundation to establish proper food safety training systems to prevent food-borne illnesses in the food-service industry