Core Curriculum

Food Safety CoE Core Curriculum

The Food Safety CoE Core Curriculum is a self-paced learning pathway, which serves as one of several educational resources available to public health professionals in foodborne illness investigation.

The asynchronous Core Curriculum track focuses on Tier 1 and Tier 2 competencies for foodborne illness outbreak detection, investigation, and response for public health professionals in the epidemiology role, environmental health role, and outbreak teams.

  • Tier 1 = Entry-level public health professionals new to outbreak investigations.
  • Tier 2 = Public health professionals who routinely detect and investigate foodborne outbreaks.

This Core Curriculum enables public health professionals to identify and access role- and tier-specific foundational training developed by the Food Safety CoEs and other partners.

This curriculum is meant to offer an accessible and flexible training model for the public health workforce.

Choose your tier > Choose your discipline > Complete all courses

Tier 1 Curriculum

Foodborne Outbreak Investigation Series Course 1

Introduces the complexities of the integrated food system and the core elements of the foodborne investigation and team.

Foodborne Outbreak Investigation Series Course 2

Dive deeper into different surveillance systems and the role they play in outbreak detection. Additionally, explore these systems through a variety of case study examples.

The Three Phases of Effective Interviewing

Learn the fundamental skills and techniques for conducting effective foodborne interviews during foodborne illness investigations.

The 10 Cardinal Rules of Interviewing

Familiarize yourself with the 10 cardinal rules of interviewing and test your knowledge by observing different interview scenarios to identify the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Challenging Interview Scenario Video Series

These videos help interviewers effectively navigate commonly encountered challenging enteric disease interview situations.

Enteric Disease Sexual History Interviewing Toolkit

This two-page handout is designed to be a reference tool for interviewers asking sexual history questions during enteric disease interviews.

Applied Outbreak Investigation (AOI)

Work an outbreak involving a frisbee golf team and learn how to apply epidemiologic skills and methods to a foodborne disease investigation.

Foodborne Outbreak Investigation Series Course 7

Explore the key elements of concluding a foodborne outbreak investigation.

Three Steps and a Hop: A Foodborne Outbreak Case Study (Online)

Wrap up the Epidemiology Tier 1 Core Curriculum by completing a case study based on a local outbreak at a polka dance festival.

Tier 3 Curriculum

If you are interested in completing Tier 3 of the core curriculum, please contact us.