Stratification of violations of sanitary-epidemiological requirements as an instrument for developing the risk-based model for control activities (on the example of food providers)

The development concept of public risk-based control includes assessment of violations of mandatory requirements considering severity of outcomes, that is, establishing how ‘critical’ these violations are as regards protected values.

The aim of this study was to propose and test the procedure for stratifying (differentiating) violations of mandatory sanitary-epidemiological requirements per risks of human health harm on the example of food providers.

We analyzed the results of 103 control activities conducted at food providers in one region and four epidemiological investigations of infection outbreaks in 2025. The analysis focused on results of laboratory tests of food products conducted in inspections (64 reports) and was aimed at checking their conformity with hygienic requirements. We identified probable outcomes for consumers’ health considering the results of epidemiological investigations as well.

An algorithm is proposed for stratification of violations. It includes determining likelihood of violation of some specific requirements based on analyzing the inspection records, likelihood of unsafe food products in turnover due to failure to comply with requirements to activities performed by a food provider and severity of health outcomes caused by these unsafe food products for consumers of food provider services.

Additionally, we assessed the relationship between violations of requirements to activities and occurrence of unsafe foods in turnover per the relative risk (RR) criterion.

Violations were stratified considering established risk levels. RR values for consumers (RR > 1, CI > 1.0) were taken as an additional criterion. Another additional criterion was the absolute risk of violations of requirements to food product safety in case requirements to food provider activities were violated (RFe).

Overall, 33 items of mandatory requirements were found to be violated according to the inspection results. Seven out of them were assigned into the ‘high risk’ category including violations associated with counter flows of raw materials, semi-finished and finished goods (RR = 3.3; CI: 1.1–10.4); insects or other pests found inside food providers’ premises (RR = 5.1; CI: 1.8–14); non-conformity with safe procedures for doing the dishes (RR = 7.0; CI: 3.8–12.8) etc.

Our suggestion is to differentiate ‘high-risk, ‘alerting’, and ‘low-risk’ violations. Comparison of ‘high-risk’ violations in restaurants/cafes and fast food outlets showed that ‘high-risk’ violations were different for different types of food providers.
The study is limited by the research object, which includes the results obtained by inspections at objects under surveillance only in one region and only over one year.

Marking violations of mandatory requirements, which are the most closely connected to failure to conform to safety of finished food products per the health risk criterion, as critical ones seems a convenient and available instrument for developing public risk-based control.

Stratification of sanitary-epidemiological requirements involving identification of violations with the most critical outcomes for protected values can be interesting and significant for surveillance authorities as an instrument for making control activities more targeted and effective given a limited amount of time assigned for an inspection. Identification of critical violations for economic entities is important for optimizing prevention programs, mitigating risks of violations, and improving the image of socially responsible businesses.