# Franklin County Public Health practice-based research to identify and prevent environmental risk factors contributing to foodborne illness

> **NIH ALLCDC U01** · FRANKLIN COUNTY OHIO BOARD/COMMISSIONERS · 2021 · $192,587

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Franklin County Public Health (FCPH) seeks to advance the field of retail food safety by
becoming an active member of the Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net).
FCPH intends to conduct practice-based research that will support the National Prevention
Strategy Strategic Priority of Healthy Eating and the Healthy People 2020 Food Safety
Objectives by increasing food safety and reducing risk factors for foodborne illnesses.
Specifically, FCPH aims to build on previous EHS-Net findings and study how certified
kitchen managers (CKMs) may impact five major risk factors that contribute to outbreaks of
foodborne illness: A) Improper holding time and temperature, B) Contaminated utensils and
equipment, C) Improper cooking, D) Poor employee hygiene, and E) Food obtained from
unsafe sources. Initial work will evaluate the relationship between the presence of a CKM and
violations in these five areas during inspections, and consider other factors such as inspector
bias and type of training completed by the CKM to achieve certification. Multisite projects
could identify how the CKM certification or training processes differ across the EHS-Net and
evaluate how these differences might impact retail food safety. Results from these efforts
would help describe the relationships between CKMs and risk factors for foodborne illness,
and could be used to justify changes to CKM requirements in the Food Code. FCPH has
created a cross-cutting team of environmental health and epidemiology staff to conduct the
proposed research activities. This team is committed to collaborating with the EHS-Net on
other research projects that may improve the retail food safety environment.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10259646
- **Project number:** 5U01EH001362-02
- **Recipient organization:** FRANKLIN COUNTY OHIO BOARD/COMMISSIONERS
- **Principal Investigator:** Alexander Evans
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $192,587
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-09-30 → 2025-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10259646

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10259646, Franklin County Public Health practice-based research to identify and prevent environmental risk factors contributing to foodborne illness (5U01EH001362-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10259646. Licensed CC0.

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