New WHO Collaborating Centre established to support work on food safety and healthy diet

WHO welcomes the Research Group for Risk Benefit at the DTU National Food Institutebased in Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark, as the new WHO Collaborating Centre for Risk and Benefits of Foods and Diets. The group will support WHO’s efforts to estimate the burden of foodborne diseases and to develop integrated risk-benefit approaches for healthier and safer food. Their contributions will help reduce avoidable disease burden due to unsafe food or unhealthy diets, and to make people healthier through evidence-based dietary recommendations adapted to regional and local contexts.

WHO collaborating centres carry out activities in support of WHO’s programmes in all areas of public health. By relying on robust scientific expertise, this new Centre will support WHO’s mission of supporting countries to achieve healthy, safe and sustainable diets.

Specifically, the new Centre will:

• support WHO in strengthening foodborne disease data, including maintaining and updating WHO foodborne disease estimates;
• support WHO in developing an integrated approach for risk-benefit assessment of food including nutritional, microbial and chemical contaminations, taking into account the sustainability aspects; and
• support WHO in assisting its Member States to strengthen national data capacity with respect to foodborne diseases, source attribution, and risk-benefit assessments.