Preventing food-borne illness and death remains a major public health challenge in the U.S. - one in every five individuals in the nation falls into an at-risk category. Substantially reducing food-borne disease outbreaks is a goal of Extension's Healthy People 2010 program. Because of Nevada's growing elderly and young populations and the state's economic dependency on food-service related tourism, Nevadans are particularly vulnerable. Extension has been instrumental in bringing about the "Nevada Food Safety Task Force," which strives to provide a working forum for food safety experts and to improve communication between all entities that are held accountable for food safety and security within our state. Also food handling and eating preferences questionnaires were mailed to elderly/adult care and child care facilities in Nevada to determine their food safety education needs.
