Each year in the United States an estimated 9 million people get sick, 56,000 are hospitalized, and 1,300 die of a foodborne disease caused by known pathogens. These estimates help highlight the scope of this public health problem. However, to develop effective prevention measures, food safety agencies and partners need to understand the types of foods contributing to the problem. 

The Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC) is a tri-agency group created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS). By bringing together data from CDC, FDA, and USDA-FSIS, and by developing sound analytical methods, IFSAC scientists can improve estimates of the sources of foodborne illness.

Using outbreak surveillance data from 1998 through 2022, IFSAC reports annual estimates of the percentages of foodborne illness attributed to 17 food categories for Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, and Listeria monocytogenes.

• Salmonella illnesses came from a wide variety of foods. More than 75 percent of Salmonella illnesses were attributed to seven food categories: chicken, fruits, seeded vegetables (such as tomatoes), pork, other produce (such as nuts), beef, and turkey.
• Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157 illnesses were most often linked to two categories. Over ...