Hi all! My name is Elsa and I am a rising senior studying biological sciences and development sociology with strong interests in nutrition and public health.
The first week or two of my internship consisted mostly of familiarizing myself with the field of food safety and the databases used by the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets. As someone new to this field, I was surprised to learn about the vast public health consequences of foodborne illness, as well as the variety of etiologies responsible for foodborne illness. I also researched food safety policy, and learned that most processes of food inspection are not federally standardized and are instead fragmented across federal, state and local agencies.
Next, I spent some time exploring the databases that the Department uses to keep track of inspections.
The Food Dailies database provided me detailed insight into how inspectors spend their day – including a history of what sites they visited, when, and for how long.
I also explored The Food Safety and Inspection Query Database, which contains further information on inspections and their outcome, as well as lab data and consumer complaints.
It was a great start and I next hope to explore the relationship between food safety processes and food borne illness events in greater depth.