UK Data Service Data Impact Fellows: Rachel Oldroyd
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2025 4:11 am
We are delighted to announce Rachel Oldroyd as one of our UK Data Service Data Impact Fellows. Rachel is a quantitative human geographer based at the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) at the University of Leeds, and here discusses how novel types of data are used to detect illness caused by contaminated food or drink.
Affecting an estimated 1 million people at a cost america rcs data of around £1.5 billion per year (Food Standards Agency, 2011), foodborne illness remains an unacceptably high burden on the UK population and economy. As many victims choose to recover at home without visiting their GP, the number of cases is difficult to measure and severely under reported in national data.
But what is foodborne illness? The World Health Organisation defines it as an Infectious Intestinal Disease caused by the ingestion of a harmful parasite, virus or bacteria, known as a pathogen. A pathogen can infiltrate any part of the food supply chain and can be hard to detect, but will result in symptoms ranging from mild nausea to death. With around 500 annual deaths in the UK attributed to food poisoning, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) are continually developing methods to support their key objective to reduce its incidence.
Affecting an estimated 1 million people at a cost america rcs data of around £1.5 billion per year (Food Standards Agency, 2011), foodborne illness remains an unacceptably high burden on the UK population and economy. As many victims choose to recover at home without visiting their GP, the number of cases is difficult to measure and severely under reported in national data.
But what is foodborne illness? The World Health Organisation defines it as an Infectious Intestinal Disease caused by the ingestion of a harmful parasite, virus or bacteria, known as a pathogen. A pathogen can infiltrate any part of the food supply chain and can be hard to detect, but will result in symptoms ranging from mild nausea to death. With around 500 annual deaths in the UK attributed to food poisoning, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) are continually developing methods to support their key objective to reduce its incidence.