Increasing demands for regulatory accountability have required governments to make greater use of cost benefit analysis in evaluating policy changes.
There are many different methods used to evaluate the costs of foodborne disease.
These differences severely compromise the degree to which the estimates obtained from such studies can be compared.
In part, this is a natural consequence of the fact that many studies have different objectives or specifically, different points of reference to which the status quo is compared.
For example, some studies consider the aggregate cost of incidences of a single disease with its complete elimination as the point of reference.
Others focus on the evaluating the costs and benefits of alternative government programs which are aimed at reducing the prevalence of pathogens in the food supply, and here the point of reference is the alternative policy options.
There are two approaches for evaluating the economic costs of (or benefits of a reduction in) foodborne disease: cost of illness (COI) and willingness to pay (WTP).
Approaching to measuring the economic costs of food borne disease
