Risk-based food safety system A systematic means by which to facilitate decision making to reduce public health risk in light of limited resources and additional factors that may be considered.

Sunshine laws State and federal statutes requiring that government meetings, decisions, and records be made available to the public.

Surveillance A key component of epidemiology, it can be defined as the ongoing collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of health-related data. Surveillance is one of a number of methods used by epidemiologists to gather information on a disease.

Top-down data Surveillance-based data, such as epidemiological data on illnesses and deaths.

Toxicoinformatics Analysis and integration of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic databases with the objective of knowledge discovery and the elucidation of mechanisms of toxicity.

Traceability In the food arena, the ability to trace the history, application, or location of a food under consideration.

Trace-back/trace-forward activities In the food arena, activities performed to determine the origin (trace-back) or distribution (trace-forward) of a product, usually to identify contaminated food. The activities are conducted jointly with local health departments and appropriate federal agencies. They entail the review and analysis of records such as harvesting dates, specific field and product locations, number of packages within a lot, and packing and shipping dates.

User fee A charge for the use of a particular good or service, for example, an entrance fee to a state park or the rental of equipment at a pubic facility. Many government-operated facilities are financed by both tax revenues and user fees.

Viral communications/marketing Use of social networking to rapidly diffuse ideas, marketing campaigns, or other messages.

Zoonotic disease A disease of animals that may be transmitted to humans under natural conditions (e.g., brucellosis, rabies).