National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS, Food)

CDC collects reports of foodborne outbreaks due to enteric bacterial, viral, parasitic, and chemical agents. State, local, and territorial public health agencies report these outbreaks to Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System through the National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS).

NORS was called the electronic Foodborne Outbreak Reporting System (eFORS) from 1998-2008. NORS launched in 2009 and is a web-based platform designed to support reporting of foodborne,  enteric disease outbreaks transmitted through water, person-to-person contact, or direct contact with animals to CDC by state and territorial public health agencies.

The CDC surveillance team conducts analyses of these data to improve understanding of the human health impact of foodborne and waterborne outbreaks and the pathogens, foods, settings, and contributing factors (for example, food not kept at the right temperature) involved in these outbreaks.

The launch of NORS represents an important shift in national foodborne and waterborne disease outbreak reporting—a transition from paper-based reporting to electronic reporting of outbreak data. NORS will improve the ability to describe and prevent foodborne and waterborne disease outbreaks at national and state levels through the collection of detailed information about deficiencies and risk factors associated with foodborne and waterborne exposures.

These data, along with historical outbreak report data transferred into NORS, will be more readily available for review and analysis to state health officials. This should enable foodborne and waterborne disease outbreak investigators, researchers, and health policy makers to evaluate and implement effective measures designed to prevent illness and reduce the burden of foodborne and waterborne diseases in the United States. Public health professionals at state and local health departments who report foodborne and waterborne disease outbreaks to CDC can access additional resources for NORS on the Forms and Training pages below.  State and local health departments are asked to review the information on these pages before they begin reporting foodborne and waterborne disease outbreaks in NORS. Information on NORS waterborne materials can be found at NORS (Water).

NORS Forms and Other Materials

• NORS 52.13 (PDF, 147 KB)
• NORS Appendix (PDF, 53B)
• NORS 52.13 Guidance (PDF, 1.38 MB)

Please note: Some of these publications are available for download only as *.pdf files. These files require Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to be viewed. Please review the information on downloading and using Acrobat Reader software.