Source attribution

A variety of methods are available to attribute foodborne diseases to the main transmission pathways and further to specific food sources, including approaches based on analysis of data from occurrence and epidemiological studies, intervention studies, and expert elicitations. 

For the 2015 Edition of the WHO Foodborne Disease Estimates, the global expert elicitation study was conducted based on the advices from the FERG 2007-2015, and the results were published and utilized to finalize the WHO Estimates.

• Hald T, Aspinall W, Devleesschauwer B, Cooke R, Corrigan T, Havelaar AH, et al. (2016) World Health Organization Estimates of the Relative Contributions of Food to the Burden of Disease Due to Selected Foodborne Hazards: A Structured Expert Elicitation. PLoS ONE 11(1): e0145839. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145839
• Hoffmann S, Devleesschauwer B, Aspinall W, Cooke R, Corrigan T, Havelaar A, et al. (2017) Attribution of global foodborne disease to specific foods: Findings from a World Health Organization structured expert elicitation. PLoS ONE 12(9): e0183641. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0183641

For the 2025 Edition, the FERG for 2021-2025, in particular the Source Attribution Task Force (SATF), advised WHO to newly conduct the global source attribution study. Based on the open call, WHO has selected and commissioned the Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics at the Delft University of Technology to lead the study in close collaboration with WHO and FERG/SATF, and a number of experts have been recruited to participate in the study (public call for experts dated July 2023).

For more information on the source attribution methodology, please see the related WHO webinar held on 5 November 2024.