Rhode Island Human Food Rapid Response Teams

Grant Proposal Abstract Title: Rhode Island’s Maintenance of Human Food Rapid Response Team Funding Opportunity Number (FOA): RFA-FD-23-019 The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH), Center for Food Protection (CFP) will continue to maintain the operations of its multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary, Rhode Island Rapid Response Teams (RI RRT). To do this, RIDOH will coordinate with internal and external partners including, but not limited to, laboratory, epidemiology, emergency management, the FDA Division Office and the Office of Partnerships. Incident response and surveillance work conducted by the RI RRT will include foodborne illness investigations, tracebacks, environmental assessments, sample collection, laboratory analyses, and recalls. To facilitate long-term improvements and contribute to the national integrated food safety system, the RI RRT will unify and coordinate emergency response efforts including: 1) Strengthening the link among epidemiology, lab and environmental health/regulatory components; 2) Improving States' regulatory and surveillance HAF protection programs to include using Incident Command System (ICS)/National Incident Management System (NIMS) principles and a Unified Command structure to conduct integrated responses to all-hazards HAF emergencies, rapidly identifying and removing tainted food from commerce, and conducting root cause investigations to inform future prevention efforts; and 3) Addressing supporting components, such as training, data sharing, data analysis, communications, continuous process improvement, and development of best practices and other resources to support national response capacity/capability development.