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We are pleased to announce that our symposium proposal, "Food Safety Education:  The value of K-12 education and outreach to advancing the development of future food safety leaders," has been approved by the Program Committee for further development for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the International Association for Food Protection.  The meeting will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina from July 18-31, 2013.  

Abstract: Foodborne illnesses continue to pose a substantial public health burden in the United States and around the world.  One persistent contributing problem is a relatively poor level of food safety "knowledge" in the population at-large.  To address this, there is a clear need to expand existing food safety education and awareness programs, and to establish new ones.  However, this cannot be done without a critical mass of food safety professionals.  Unfortunately, career and educational opportunities in food safety are largely unrecognized by K-12 students, meaning that many students come to food safety relatively late in their academic training.  The purpose of this symposium is to highlight innovative approaches to engaging future food safety professionals by targeting K-12 populations.  The symposium will kick off with four presentations on different strategies used recently to reach this important pool of future food safety professionals followed by a presentation describing USDA-NIFA priorities for food safety outreach and conclude with a roundtable discussion.  Attendees will come away with an understanding of why it is important to include food safety education in K-12 curricula and how engaging K-12 students can help grow the population of food safety professionals around the world.  

More details will be provided after the IAFP Program Committee meeting in February 2013.