This page provides references to ERS publications and journal articles:

• ERS reports
• Journal articles

Note: Several reports listed below refer to ERS's Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator. ERS researchers are currently updating and refining estimates of the costs of foodborne illness, along with details on the assumptions behind the estimates, and will release this information in an updated Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator.

ERS reports

An Online Cost Calculator for Estimating the Economic Cost of Illness Due to Shiga Toxin-Producing E. coli (STEC) O157 Infections--Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O157 is a significant cause of foodborne illness in the United States. ERS estimated the economic cost of illness due to this pathogen--$405.2 million (in 2003 dollars)--using the most recent estimate (1997) of the annual number of STEC O157 cases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and medical and cost data from the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (September 2007). The online Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator is not available while ERS revises its cost-of-illness estimates.

A Web-Based Tool for Calculating the Cost of Foodborne Illness--The ERS Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator can be used to estimate the economic cost of illness due to Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O157 infections (June 2006). The online Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator is not available while ERS revises its cost-of-illness estimates.

Valuing the Health Benefits of Food Safety: A Proceedings--Federal agencies use different methods to estimate the costs of illness, so it is difficult to compare programs across agencies. In order to begin developing a common approach, several agencies including ERS organized a conference on valuing the health benefits of food safety at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland in September 2000 (April 2001).

Food Safety Efforts Accelerate in the 1990's --This report contains a table with the details of the costs for five foodborne pathogens. The public health human illness costs total $6.9 billion annually (September-December 2000).

Salmonella Cost Estimate Updated Using FoodNet Data --The ERS estimate of the economic cost of illness due to Salmonella infections was updated using new data sources, including information from the FoodNet Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (May-August 1999).

Estimated Annual Costs of Campylobacter-Associated Guillain-Barré Syndrome--Campylobacter appears to be an important cause of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare form of temporary paralysis. This report describes how ERS estimated the annual costs of GBS due to foodborne Campylobacter infections (July 1997).

Bacterial Foodborne Disease: Medical Costs and Productivity Losses--This report describes how ERS originally estimated the costs of illness due to six bacterial pathogens, using disease outcome trees and the available information about the medical consequences of each type of infection (August 1996).

Journal articles

Economic Cost of Guillain-Barré Syndrome in the United States--Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is a rare but serious form of temporary paralysis that is triggered by certain infections, including foodborne illness due to Campylobacter jejuni. ERS estimated the annual economic cost of illness due to GBS from all causes to be $1.7 billion (in 2004 dollars), based on data from a national hospital survey, a telephone survey of adult GBS patients, and other sources.  (See Frenzen, Paul. "Economic Cost of Guillain-Barre Syndrome in the United States," Neurology, 71:14-20 March 2008).

Roberts, Tanya. "WTP Estimates of the Societal Costs of U.S. Foodborne Illness," American Journal of Agricultural Economics 89 (4):11838-8 (December 2007).

Frenzen, Paul D. "Hospital Admissions for Guillain-Barré Syndrome in the United States, 1993-2004," Neuroepidemiology 29 (1):83-88. (November 2007).

Jones, Timothy F., Marcy B. McMillian, Elaine Scallan, Paul D. Frenzen, Alicia B. Cronquist, Stepy Thomas, and Frederick J. Angulo. "Population-Based Estimate of the Substantial Burden of Diarrhoeal Disease in the United States FoodNet, 1996-2003," Epidemiology and Infection 135 (2):293-301 (February 2007).

Scallan, Elaine, Timothy Jones, Alicia Cronquist, Stepy Thomas, Paul D. Frenzen, Dina Hoefer, Carlota Medus, Frederick Angulo, and the FoodNet Working Group. "Factors Associated with Seeking Medical Care and Submitting a Stool Sample in Estimating the Burden of Foodborne Illness," Foodborne Pathogens and Disease 3(4):432-38 (December 2006).

Frenzen, Paul D., Alison Drake, Frederick J. Angulo, and the FoodNet Working Group. "Economic Cost of Illness Due to Escherichia coli O157 Infections in the United States," Journal of Food Protection 68 (12):2623-30 (December 2005).

Economic Cost of Illness Due to Escherichia coli O157 Infections in the United States--This article describes the updated ERS estimate of the economic cost of illness due to STEC O157 (formerly called Escherichia coli O157) (August 2005).

Deaths due to Unknown Foodborne Agents--This article describes ERS's review of the evidence on unknown pathogenic agents in food, which have been estimated to cause 3,400 deaths per year in the United States (September 2004).

Frenzen, Paul D. "Mortality Due to Gastroenteritis of Unknown Etiology in the United States." Journal of Infectious Diseases 187:441-52 (February 2003).

Last updated: Saturday, May 26, 2012

For more information contact: Sandra Hoffmann and Toby Anekwe