Glossary

Congenital: A congenital disease is one that is present since birth. Congenital disease can result from a mother's infection with some, but not all, foodborne pathogens during pregnancy.

Consumer price index (CPI): A measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services. Prices for different goods and services can change at different rates over time. As a result, there are different CPIs for different baskets of goods and services—for example, hospital services versus food.

Credible interval (CI): A credible interval is a subjective probability interval around a central or mean estimate; it is analogous to a confidence interval in more commonly taught frequentist statistics. 

Discounting: A method for adjusting the value of future costs and benefits to an equivalent value today to account for time and opportunity cost. That is, a dollar today is worth more than a dollar a year from now (even if inflation is not considered).

Disease-outcome tree: A diagram that sequentially maps the likelihood of alternative health consequences following an initial illness. A disease-outcome tree diagram traces the percentage of people initially infected with a pathogen who experience different health outcomes. In the health outcomes presented in this data product, death is always preceded by hospitalization.

End-stage renal disease (ESRD): ESRD, or chronic kidney failure, occurs when the kidneys stop working well enough for a patient to be able to live without dialysis or a kidney transplant.

Guillain Barré syndrome (GBS): An autoimmune reaction of the body that affects the peripheral nerves and causes weakness, paralysis, and occasionally death. Guillain Barré syndrome is a serious neurological disorder that can occur after infections with Campylobacter jejuni (see CDC's Campylobacter).

Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS): A disease characterized by anemia, acute kidney failure, and neurological failure. HUS can result from infection with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli. Children under 5 years of age and the immuno-compromised elderly are more likely than others to get HUS as a result of E. coli infection. 

Incidence: The number of new cases in a population in a given time period. In this data product, incidence refers to the number of new cases of foodborne illness acquired in the United States in a typical year.

International Classification of Diseases (ICD): The ICD is a standard classification and diagnostic tool used for epidemiology, health management, and clinical purposes. It provides a uniform system for diagnosing and classifying illnesses. (See WHO, International Classification of Diseases (ICD)).

Labor force participation rate: The percentage of average civilian noninstitutional population in the civilian labor force in a year. The civilian labor force comprises all employed and unemployed civilians ages 16 years and older in the noninstitutional population.

Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS): The largest publicly available all-payer inpatient health care database in the United States, providing national estimates of hospital inpatient stays. It was developed by the Healthcare Cost Utilization Project, yielding national estimates of hospital inpatient stays. The NIS was developed through a Federal-State-Industry partnership sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). (See Overview of the National (Nationwide) Inpatient Sample (NIS).

Opportunity cost: Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. While costs can be thought of in financial terms, economists define costs in terms of the trade-off of scarce resources that must be used to get something. The opportunity to buy something is the value of the most valuable thing that must be given up to buy the good. The opportunity cost of time is the value of the highest valued use of time that is being spent doing something else, like being sick. 

Pathogen: A pathogen is a biological agent that can cause a disease. In the foodborne illness estimates in this data product, they include bacteria, viruses and parasites. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s website has additional details about the major pathogens in this data set:

Productivity loss: The monetary value of output that would have been produced in the absence of an illness, disability, injury, morbidity, or premature mortality. Productivity loss is commonly measured in terms of lost wages.

Risk: The probability of an adverse event occurring.

Sepsis: "Presence of disease-causing organisms or their toxins in the blood or tissues" (Webster's Dictionary, 1984). Sepsis usually results in serious illness or death.

Shiga-toxin: A toxin that is produced by some bacteria, including a group of Escherichia coli (E. coli). The Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STECs) include STEC O157:H7 and non-O157:H7 STECs (see CDC's What are Shiga toxin-producing E. coli?). The naming conventions for toxin-producing E. coli have been changing in recent years as more is learned about these bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now uses the nomenclature Escherichia coli O157 (STEC O157).

Value of a statistical life (VSL): The VSL is a measure of the amount that a population is willing to spend to reduce population mortality risk enough to reduce expected deaths in a given time period by one death. It is an aggregation of individuals' willingness to pay for a small reduction in risk of premature death during a specified time period. Individuals regularly spend money to reduce the risk of premature death. Examples include spending money on automobile safety features, nutritionally better diets, or motorcycle helmets.