Program Details

Practice Type:	Promising
Program Name:	Protecting Fairgoers through Education, Awareness and Standardized Food Inspection
Organization:	Northeast District Department of Health
Web site:	www.nddh.org
Overview:	Country Fairs are considered temporary food events and as such present unique challenges in ensuring food safety as well as the ability to recognize, respond to and investigate possible food borne illness outbreaks. There are numerous instances of food borne illness outbreaks that were investigated and confirmed in relation to country fair events. In some cases, thousands of fairgoers were affected and some deaths occurred. The nature of food preparation and handling at fairs is such that it is very difficult to inspect and permit very large numbers of vendors prior to food actually being served to the public. The Northeast District Department of Health provides inspection and permitting for the Woodstock and Brooklyn Agricultural Fair vendors and is responsible for food safety for nearly 400,000 local, state, regional and international fair participants who attend yearly. These events have presented enormous challenges in staff time and resource expenditures that lead us to the development of standardized processes and educational programs targeted at addressing food safety assurance and public education to encourage a collaborative approach to food safety at these events.
Year Submitted:	2006
Responsiveness and Innovation:	The Administrative Management of both major fairs have repeatedly expressed concern about the safety of the food served, the risk of food borne illness in this venue both from vendor handling and general public food handling practices, the risk presented by a venue that includes animals and food and the potential devastating effects of a food borne outbreak associated with the fair. The general public is also becoming increasingly concerned with food safety. This practice addresses how local health departments can implement strategies to assure reduction in risk of food borne illness at fairs, improve administrative systems to manage food inspections in unique circumstances, decrease local health department costs in providing appropriate oversight and improve understanding and therefore food safety practices among vendors and the general public. NDDH developed a database that was designed to capture information and will continue to be modified to provide valuable information for outbreak investigation. The collaborative partnership between NDDH and the fair management continues to foster a trusting and effective relationship that helps vendors know exactly what to expect with the inspection and permitting process, provides added value through free food safety classes and public health messages and makes these fairs more desirable to vendor participation.
Agency and Community Roles:	Although NDDH developed the practice components, the foundation of success is the collaboration with fair management and the motivation of fair vendors to handle and serve their food safely. The FAST class was developed by NDDH as a modification of the Qualified Food Operator course and allows flexibility in class topic inclusion so that it can be revised and tailored to vendor needs. Local media extensively covers these fairs and become partners with NDDH as we implement the yearly public education campaign. The NDDH environmental health staff conducts the FAST class and pre-inspection consultations and since these are the same professionals who inspect the vendors, this helps to build a positive relationship between health department and vendor workers. NDDH shares vendor information with the fair management that establishes an important and effective communication system for resolution of issues that may arise with food vendors, the general public or as part of a possible outbreak investigation. There are no “surprise” vendors that are only discovered during the inspection process. Fair management has increased the number of free standing hand wash stations throughout the fair grounds, focusing on areas where attendees come in contact with animals and support placement of hand washing signage throughout the fair grounds. Fairgoers see the presence and evidence of local public health involvement in safe food handling and have expressed appreciation and recognition of the value of local public health in food safety.
Costs and Expenditures:
Implementation:	The Administrative Management of both major fairs have repeatedly expressed concern about the safety of the food served, the risk of food borne illness in this venue both from vendor handling and general public food handling practices, the risk presented by a venue that includes animals and food and the potential devastating effects of a food borne outbreak associated with the fair. The general public is also becoming increasingly concerned with food safety. This practice addresses how local health departments can implement strategies to assure reduction in risk of food borne illness at fairs, improve administrative systems to manage food inspections in unique circumstances, decrease local health department costs in providing appropriate oversight and improve understanding and therefore food safety practices among vendors and the general public. NDDH developed a database that was designed to capture information and will continue to be modified to provide valuable information for outbreak investigation. The collaborative partnership between NDDH and the fair management continues to foster a trusting and effective relationship that helps vendors know exactly what to expect with the inspection and permitting process, provides added value through free food safety classes and public health messages and makes these fairs more desirable to vendor participation.
Sustainability:	NDDH has utilized the practice components since 2002. Fair and community recognition, acceptance and cooperation support continuation of the practice. Database information can be obtained and utilized from standardized applications and a simple access database that can be updated yearly. The database also provides a history of food and vendors at the fair. Although fairs pose unique challenges for health departments, vendors must be inspected and risks addressed. Our practice is minimal additional cost in supplies and has proven to decrease more expensive costs for staff time at the event through preplanning. Once the database has been established, preplanning time can also be streamlined. FAST class materials can be reused for trainings and participant information can be photocopied. Except for copyrighted hand washing posters, NDDH produced and laminated many of its own posters for re-use at yearly fairs and other temporary events. The hand sanitizers were purchased with grant funding and are removable and reusable for other temporary events. The media campaign is consistent and once developed can be utilized yearly. The organized approach with rationale for each component and continuous communication between fair management and local public health provides strong support for continued cooperation.
Lessons Learned:

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