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BACKGROUND: The Tennessee Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence (COE) is a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tennessee Department of Health (TDH), and the University of Tennessee (UT). The Center serves as a resource for local, state, and federal public health professionals to enhance response to foodborne illness outbreaks. As part of the Center’s aim to improve foodborne investigations nationwide and describe implementable models that could be used for surge capacity in public health jurisdictions, we developed the Student Outbreak Rapid Response Training (SORRT) course.
METHODS: COE personnel from TDH and UT collaborated to design the course. SORRT was established as a 1-credit hour elective course available to graduate students pursuing a Masters of Public Health, food science, or other related UT graduate degrees. Students enrolled via the university and were provided course instruction and training as well as practical experience in foodborne illness and other public health investigations. Coursework consisted of an 8-hour training, orienting students to the local, regional, and state levels of the TDH, basic epidemiologic methods, components of a foodborne illness outbreak investigation, and foodborne outbreak investigation case studies. Additionally, monthly class meetings, consisting of skill-building activities and outbreak investigation discussions were held. Students complete a pre- and post-test before and after the 8-hour training. During the course of the semester, students enrolled in the course were utilized for surge capacity during outbreak investigations.
RESULTS: In the fall 2013 semester, 19 students enrolled in the course for credit. Students scored a mean of 43% (median: 44%) on the pre-test and 76% (median: 81%) on the post-test. All students’ scores improved from the pre-test to the post-test (median: 31%; range: 6%-69%). During the fall semester, 6 students provided surge capacity to the health department during 4 separate outbreak investigations, totaling 15 hours. Outbreaks included restaurant-associated Salmonella and suspected S. aureusinvestigations.
CONCLUSIONS: SORRT was a successful model for training potential public health workers in foodborne illness outbreak investigation methods and provided surge capacity during outbreak investigations conducted by local public health departments. Training increased knowledge and oriented students to public health in Tennessee and foodborne illness outbreak response. Health departments benefitted from a trained and motivated student group while students received course credit. Public health jurisdictions can adopt similar models with minimal cost while working with nearby academic partners or schools of public health.