Frontiers in Food Allergen Risk Assessment

With rising prevalence of food allergy and increasing globalisation, collecting and understanding the data on the prevalence and patterns of food allergy is critical to minimising its impact on public health. EuroPrevall, an EC 6th Framework project to investigate the prevalence of food allergy in Europe, concluded at the end of last year. This was an ideal time for EuroPrevall to partner with ILSI Europe, the FSA (UK), FARRP and the HESI PATC (USA) to host a symposium with global reach. The key themesof the symposium were patterns and prevalence, thresholds (priority setting and criteria) and how these different elements can be integrated to assess the risk from food allergens.

The output of the symposium will be a summary report, primarily of the discussion-generated output that will highlight the main conclusions and identify research gaps and how we can progress with food allergen management using existing and emerging evidence.

Objectives of the Symposium

The symposium aimed to:

• Disseminate findings from the Europrevall project and related research and place them in the context of food allergen risk assessment globally
• Discuss the implications of those findings for assessing the risk from food allergens and managing it to minimise the incidence of reactions among food allergic consumers
• Identify how this knowledge can be translated into practice and gaps to be addressed in future research.

Scientific Programme

For more information: info@ilsieurope.be.