Posted: March 3rd, 2010 - 2:17pm by Ben Chapman

At the start of pretty much every talk I’ve given in the past 3 years I have a slide about the societal cost and estimated burden of foodborne illness. I somewhat robotically spout out these two statistics:

- About 1-in 3 to 1-in-4 individuals will acquire illnesses from food each year
- The societal burden of these illnesses is estimated to be $1.4 trillion

The statistics I use come from a variety of sources including USDA Economic Research Service, WHO, CDC, Canadian health officials and Australian public health.

Today I woke up to a press release from the Produce Safety Coalition, the Make our Food Safe Coalition and the Pew Charitable Trust that cited a “landmark  study” estimating the cost of foodborne illness to be $152 billion annually.

From the report:
There are a number of ways to estimate the economic impact of foodborne illness. This report uses an FDA cost-estimate approach: health-related costs are the sum of medical costs (physician services, pharmaceuticals, and hospital costs) and losses to quality of life (lost life expectancy, pain and suffering, and functional disability).

Hardly landmark, unless you mean this estimate represents  a reduction of almost a factor of 10 in estimated costs since 2007 (I don’t think that was what was intended). Tanya Roberts published a paper in 2007 estimating the cost of foodborne illness from a willingness-to-pay (WTP) standpoint at $1.4 trillion. According to Roberts, WTP is endorsed in the literature as the valuation method most consistent with economic theory and her calculation included all seventy-six million cases of acute food-borne illness. Previous estimates examined only a few specific pathogens.

Sure, the numbers matter when it comes to prioritizing the need to address or fund food safety work. Whether it’s $6 billion, $152 billion, $1.4 trillion or $2,500-$8,000 per case (pathogen dependant) it’s a huge number. But it’s also very abstract.

The statistics are nice, but they really don’t grab foodhandlers’ attention. More compelling is where the real cost of foodborne illness is born: with the individuals and in the families of those who have been affected by it. Billions and trillions are fodder for discussions with politicians and boards of directors. Where the real food safety work occurs, both positive and negative, is on the farm, in the restaurant kitchen, supermarket deli and homes. And the numbers don’t really matter there, what resonates is that foodborne illness sucks.

What matters so much more to individual food handlers who protect public health in the US are the stories of real people being affected by food they trusted would not make them ill.

The disconnect between statistics and stories is why I follow up the burden slide with more impactful tales of outbreaks that happen weekly.  Like those who have affected real people including Mason Jones and Stephanie Smith both of whom were severely affected by E. coli O157. Tragically, Mason died at only 5 years of age and Stephanie, who is now 23, will probably never walk again.  The numbers, while nice, don’t really do these stories justice.