Southern Nevada Health District Awarded for Excellence in Food Protection

The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the voice of the nation’s nearly 3,000 local governmental health departments, announced that the Southern Nevada Health District is the recipient of the 2020 Samuel J. Crumbine Consumer Protection Award for Excellence in Food Protection at the Local Level. This award is given annually to local environmental health jurisdictions that demonstrate unsurpassed achievement in providing outstanding food protection services to their communities.

“Local public health response to foodborne illness and outbreaks remains a critical and core function of health departments,” said NACCHO Chief Executive Officer Lori Tremmel Freeman. “The Crumbine Award recognizes innovation and best practice in food safety, as well as promotes the concept of spread.”

The jury reviewing Crumbine Award nominations, consisting of outstanding public health practitioners, noted the strength of the Southern Nevada Health District efforts in the following ways:

• Strong evidence of measurable improvement of the program through identification of baseline data and assessment;
• Impressive ability in obtaining and using grants to move the food protection program forward, including development of trainings for the industry and handwashing intervention strategy;
• Active in multiple national programs and conferences, including mentoring 11 jurisdictions on the FDA Retail Program Standards, speaking at national conferences, and actively participating in the National Environmental Assessment Reporting System; and
• Excellent partnership with academia to study links between social media comments to the occurrence of foodborne illness.

“With the support of our Board of Health, industry, local academia and our regulatory partners at the local, state and federal level, our staff members have employed innovative techniques to reach our food establishment operators, to gain regulatory compliance and share strategies to help prevent illness and foodborne outbreaks,” said Chris Saxton, Director of Environmental Health for the Southern Nevada Health District. “These techniques and strategies include leveraging new technologies for foodborne illness detection, instructional YouTube videos with local chefs, training courses and educational material on our expansive Food Establishment Resource Library and using assessments to drive quality improvement for our food safety programs. Our dedicated, environmental health staff has engaged with our food industry partners to address their needs and elevate food safety practices in our community.”

Named for one of America’s renowned health officers and health educators, Samuel J. Crumbine, MD (1862-1954), the award encourages innovative programs and methods that reduce or eliminate the occurrence of foodborne illnesses, recognizes the importance of food protection at the local level, and stimulates public interest in food service sanitation. The Crumbine Award is supported by the Conference for Food Protection, in cooperation with the American Academy of Sanitarians, American Public Health Association, Association of Food and Drug Officials, Food Marketing Institute, Foodservice Packaging Institute, International Association for Food Protection, National Association of County and City Health Officials, National Environmental Health Association National Restaurant Association, National Sanitation Foundation International, and UL LLC.