FDA: Grant for Enhancing Food Protection Rapid Response Team (RRT) Development (U18)

Competition is limited to these State manufactured food regulatory programs because the foundational work conducted under the current FDA food safety inspection contracts is necessary for the completion of significant improvements in a nationally integrated food safety system. State manufactured food regulatory programs must also be enrolled in the MFRPS. The MFRPS identifies the elements of a high quality regulatory program, which includes foodborne illness outbreak and response capabilities.

The development, implementation, and sustainability of rapid response capabilities for food and feed emergencies will assist the State program in achieving conformance with the MFRPS. In addition, the MFRPS provides the foundation necessary for building, implementing, and sustaining rapid response capabilities.

Foreign Institutions
Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are not eligible to apply.
Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply.
Foreign components, as defined in the HHS Grants Policy Statement, are not allowed.

1) Strengthening the link among epidemiology, lab and environmental health/regulatory components;

2) Improving States’ regulatory and surveillance food/feed protection programs to include using Incident Command System (ICS)/National Incident Management System (NIMS) principles and a Unified Command structure to conduct integrated responses to all-hazards food/feed emergencies, rapidly identifying and removing tainted food from commerce, and conducting root cause investigations to inform future prevention efforts; and

3) Addressing supporting components, such as training, data sharing, data analysis, communications, continuous process improvement, and development of best practices and other resources to support national capacity/capability development.

This will be accomplished through the provision of funding to support development of multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) and will require extensive cooperation and coordination with FDA District Offices and other FDA program offices.