From Implementation to Impact: Building the Evidence Base for the Retail Program Standards

Vollständiger Abstract

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Numerous studies have evaluated individual components of retail food safety systems, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Code, certified food protection managers, Active Managerial Control, and routine inspection. Far less attention has been paid to whether the FDA Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards (Retail Program Standards) function as an integrated systems intervention that improves public health outcomes. This article traces how outbreak science was translated into measurable risk factors, describes the retail regulatory program as the delivery system through which those risks are managed, and assesses what the published literature establishes for each link between Retail Program Standards conformance and population health. Evidence for individual components is substantial and, in several cases, outcome-linked, but no identified study evaluates the framework as a whole or asks whether incremental gains in conformance yield incremental improvements in outcomes. We set out the mechanisms the framework presumes and the evaluation question that follows from them.