Resources

Active Communication Plays Key Role in Solving Michigan Cheese Outbreak
Collaboration, coordination, and clear communication across epidemiology, environmental health, and laboratory partners helped investigators solve this outbreak.

Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net)
EHS-Net is a collaborative forum of environmental health specialists who work with epidemiologists and laboratorians to identify and prevent environmental factors contributing to foodborne and waterborne illness outbreaks.

Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet)
FoodNet is an active surveillance network that includes CDC, 10 state health departments, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, and FDA.  Its objectives are to monitor trends of specific foodborne illness, determine the burden of foodborne illness in the United States, attribute the burden to specific foods and settings and disseminate information to reduce the burden of foodborne illness.

National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System for Enteric Bacteria (NARMS)
NARMS is a national public health surveillance system that tracks changes in the antimicrobial susceptibility of certain enteric bacteria found in ill people, retail meats, and food animals in the United States. OutbreakNet Enhanced sites aim to improve detection and rapid interviewing of any cases with antimicrobial resistance data.

National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS)
The NORS system is a web-based platform into which health departments enter outbreak information. The data from NORS is then used by CDC, health departments, researchers, and policy makers to respond to and prevent outbreaks.

PulseNet
PulseNet is a national laboratory network made up of 87 labs covering the entire United States. By collecting data from all participating labs, PulseNet connects cases of foodborne illness to detect and define outbreaks.

Division of Viral Diseases (DVD)
The mission of DVD is to prevent disease, disability, and death from viral disease. DVD includes CaliciNet, a national norovirus outbreak surveillance network.

Foodborne Diseases Centers for Outbreak Response Enhancement (FoodCORE)
FoodCORE centers work together to develop new and better methods to detect, investigate, respond to, and control multistate outbreaks of foodborne diseases. FoodCORE centers develop Model Practice reports that are shared with OutbreakNet Enhanced sites.

Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence (COEs)
There are six COEs that identify and evaluate best practices for foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak investigation. COEs are also active in working with partner sites to conduct trainings and strengthen foodborne investigations.  Each OutbreakNet Enhanced site must work with a COE on a specific problem during the year.

U. S. Food and Drug Administration Rapid Response Teams (FDA-RRT)
The Food Protection Rapid Response Teams (RRT) conduct integrated, multiagency responses to all-hazards food and feed emergencies across the United States.  Through multiyear, cooperative agreements between FDA and state food regulatory partners, RRTs are activated in response to food emergencies in their states.

Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity Program (ELC)
OutbreakNet Enhanced activities are funded under a specific portion of the ELC Program Components Cooperative Agreement. ELC staff support the administrative aspects of the cooperative agreement and work closely with CDC OutbreakNet Enhanced staff and sites to promote the success of the program.