Attribution of Illnesses Transmitted by Food and Water to Comprehensive Transmission Pathways Using Structured Expert Judgment, United States

I llnesses transmitted commonly by food and wa- ter result in a major disease burden on both a national and a global scale (1). Each year in the United States, 9.4 million illnesses, 56,000 hospitalizations, and 1,351 deaths are caused by 31 known pathogens transmitted through food (2). Previous estimates of the burden of waterborne disease in the United States have largely focused on the burden of gastrointestinal illness associated with drinking water; an estimated 4-32 million cases of illness occur each year (3,4).