A study commissioned by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has classified as many as 28 subjects relating to food safety with a view to improving harmonization in food research throughout the continent.
The subjects have been classified as chemical, environmental risk assessment and microbiological, nutrition and a generic one covering all other issues, Food Quality News reported. Some of the area identified by the study include methods as well as systems for recognizing emerging food risks, harmonization of methods pertaining to risk assessment of chemical pollutants, a scheme for collection and surveillance of common data throughout Europe, enhancing genetic data use for risk assessment of microbiological pollutants and food supplement benefits/ risks.
Click here for the full list of topics identified by the EFSA-funded study.
Aside from identifying the topics, the EFSA will also prepare a priority list and chalked out a course for resource management.
According to the report, a European Union risk assessment program will delineate priorities in the area as well as identify activities and joint projects to be prioritized, programmed as well as resourced on which the member states and EFSA can collaborate to make the utmost use of the resources.
The initial stage, which is more of a qualitative round, identified the vital priority topics for EFSA while the second and third rounds saw experts rating them for their importance based on several criteria. The results would suggest a shared view of the particular topics that were most imperative for EFSA.
Assessment of the results from the feedback reveals a shift towards agreement around some top-rated topics. Together with this, the overlap between risk-domains related to many of the vital topics of interest enabled the researchers to suggest a compact list of 28 topics that can be taken forward by the experts for further discussion, the report quotes the study.
It is worth mentioning here that the study was announced following a procurement call in 2015. The study employed the Delphi method with a three-round iterative survey involving over 200 scientists and experts from fields associated with risk assessment in food safety.
These experts were asked to identify as well as rate food safety priorities consistent with certain criteria like the potential for saving resources, added value to support risk assessment activities and potential to improve harmonization of risk assessment.
