FoodOn: A Semantic Ontology Approach for Mapping Foodborne Disease Metadata

The FoodOn Food Ontology contains standardized terms and a facetbased classification scheme for describing food products, processing and environments. Mapping of foodborne pathogen isolate source information (descriptors of the contaminated materials and locations) to the FoodOn standard can facilitate data sharing and integration between multijurisdictional health and regulatory agencies utilizing disparate software platforms and data dictionaries. Faster and more efficient sharing of information is critical for tracking and controlling outbreaks of foodborne disease at local, national and international levels. This work describes mapping procedures which can be utilized by organizations and software developers to better enable interoperability between foodborne pathogen surveillance and outbreak management systems.