Final answer:
To handle a food recall, remove the item from inventory, calculate the relative risk for each type of food using incidence rates, and compare your results with others to identify the contaminated food.
Step-by-step explanation:
After identifying an item subject to a food recall, it is essential to remove it from inventory and label it appropriately. The next step is to calculate the relative risk for each type of food to determine which one is most likely contaminated.
To calculate the relative risk, you start by determining the incidence of illness among people who consumed each food item. This involves comparing the rate of illness in people who consumed the food to those who did not. Let's take the first food item as an example:
- Count the number of people who fell ill after consuming the food.
- Count the total number of people who consumed the food.
- Calculate the incidence by dividing the number of ill people by the total number of consumers.
Complete this process for all food items. Then, compare the incidence rates to determine the relative risk and identify the food item with the highest number. This item will likely be the source of contamination.
Once you have your results, it's also vital to compare them with the results of others in your lab who tested different types of food. This will help confirm which food was contaminated with pathogens.