Researchers find little if any progress toward reducing foodborne illness

A team of researchers from the FDA, CDC and USDA has found that the United States has made “none to very slight” progress toward foodborne illness reduction targets.

The new study examined the Healthy People 2030 goals and found that there has actually been an increase incidence of infections from Campylobacter, Listeria monocytogenes, and Shiga toxin-producing E. Coli (STEC). The rate of Salmonella infections has remained level.

The Healthy People Initiative, a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and various public and private organizations, aims to improve the health and well-being of all Americans. The initiative consists of national health objectives with 10-year targets to achieve by the end of each decade.

Healthy People began with the 1979 report, “Healthy People: The Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention” (Health Education and Welfare, 1979). This report became the foundation for the first national health promotion and disease prevention initiative. Healthy People 2030, which is currently in progress, represents the fourth decade of the initiative to include food safety objectives.

“Between 2011 and 2022, over 9,000 foodborne illness outbreaks were reported across all 50 states, which cost Americans $75 billion (2023 dollars) annually in medical care, lost productivity, and premature deaths, including those associated with secondary chronic illnesses and conditions that develop after the initial illness (Government Accountability Office, 2025),” according to the research report.

The researchers who examined the data so far for the 2030 goals noted that progress toward national foodborne illness reduction targets has remained limited, consistent with findings from a 2025 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

The new study by the FDA, CDC and USDA was published in the Journal of Food Protection, and examined nearly four decades of progress toward national food safety objectives under the Healthy People initiative. Food safety objectives were first introduced under Healthy People 2000.

None of the Healthy People 2020 targets have been met.

The researchers analyzed historical surveillance data, primarily from CDC’s Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, to evaluate progress toward pathogen-specific infection reduction targets across four decades.

The most recent data available for Healthy People 2030 indicates no detectable change in salmonellosis incidence but indicates increasing incidence of listeriosis, campylobacteriosis, and STEC infection.

The most recent Healthy People 2030 data, covering 2024 for three pathogens and 2023 for Campylobacter, showed, using a baseline derived from 2016–2018 data, that none of the targets for the four pathogens were met:

• Campylobacter: Incidence increased from a baseline of 16.2 to 20.6 infections per 100,000 population, compared to a target of 10.9
• Salmonella: Incidence remained relatively unchanged, from 15.3 to 15.2 infections per 100,000 population, compared to a target of 11.5
• STEC: Incidence increased from 4.6 to 5.7 infections per 100,000 population, compared to a target of 3.7
• L. monocytogenes: Incidence increased from 0.27 to 0.36 infections per 100,000 population, compared to a target of 0.22.

The researchers reported that changes in surveillance methods, diagnostic technologies and target-setting approaches have complicated comparisons of foodborne illness incidence across Healthy People decades.

For example, earlier Healthy People objectives used single-year baseline infection rates but more recent objectives have relied on three-year pooled averages and more rigorous statistical approaches to establish targets.