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The Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator provides policymakers and the general
public with information on the assumptions behind foodborne illness cost
estimates—and gives them a chance to make their own assumptions and
calculate their own cost estimates.
The Calculator has three primary objectives:
- To describe the assumptions and calculations behind the ERS cost estimates
for five foodborne pathogens: Salmonella, shiga-toxin producing E. coli O157, non-O157 shiga-toxin producing E.
coli, Listeria, and Campylobacter.
- To describe alternative epidemiological and cost assumptions, including
those used by EPA and FDA in their foodborne illness cost estimates.
- To enable Calculator users to create their own cost estimates for
each pathogen by changing the assumptions used in the ERS calculations.
Given any new assumptions, the Calculator provides new cost estimates
and a number of options for displaying the results.
Users can examine the impact of different assumptions on cost estimates
and risk rankings. They can change assumptions to reflect any specific
information about disease incidence, medical costs, productivity losses,
or disutility. By changing the case-number assumption, users can calculate
the costs of foodborne illness for a particular State or region, or for
a particular foodborne illness outbreak. A user could even use the Calculator
to predict his/her own potential costs of foodborne illness.
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