Research gaps and priorities for quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA)

“The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has demonstrated the dire need to bolster the early identification of infectious disease transmission and act quickly to mitigate risk (Beatrice & Calleja, 2021; Diamond et al., 2022; Pluchino et al., 2021). Building capacity for conducting quantitative microbial risk assessments (QMRAs) and integrating those efforts into policy decision support systems can increase disease prevention and resilience. Further refining the knowledge underlying risk assessment such as the linkages between microbiology, medicine, exposure science, and other fields is needed. Additionally, understanding how QMRA outputs interface with policies, engineering management strategies, and public health levers for intervention will increase the quality and relevance of the field. Although the QMRA community of scientists has grown around the world, there is a lack of coordination to ensure continued growth in productive directions. Continued improvement of QMRA methods and practices is needed to support 21st century water and food safety, and control of emergent and re-emergent infectious diseases.
In support of these goals, our objectives were to bring QMRA scientists together to identify: (1) key research gaps in the field of QMRA; (2) emerging applications of QMRA; and (3) data needs and key scientific efforts for addressing gaps and driving new applications. This perspective aims to synthesize research gaps and top issues to advance QMRA education and user communities in support of those needs to advance the field of QMRA.”

(Citation: Hamilton, K. A., Ciol Harrison, J., Mitchell, J., Weir, M., Verhougstraete, M., Haas, C. N., Nejadhashemi, A. P., Libarkin, J., Gim Aw, T., Bibby, K., Bivins, A., Brown, J., Dean, K., Dunbar, G., Eisenberg, J., Emelko, M., Gerrity, D., Gurian, P. L., Hartnett, E., … Rose, J. B. – Research gaps and priorities for quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA). – Risk Analysis (2024) 1–16 – DOI: 10.1111/risa.14318 – (Open Access))

© 2024 The Author(s). Risk Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Risk Analysis. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License