A critical assessment of the application of HACCP in different areas of public health and medicine

Abstract

Hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) is a well known and widely accepted management system initially implemented in the food industry. It was originally developed to build up a safety system for food consumed by astronauts. Since then, the HACCP has been adopted in public health, medicine, process analysis as well as in the assessment of product quality. The successful implementation of the HACCP was described in medicine and public health in different settings. However, a decisive difference was found between both fields. Whereas the method was used in medicine as a preventive system, in public health, especially in infectious diseases, the system was mainly used to evaluate management processes as well as risk assessment and to determine preventive measures. Therefore, the latter approach required a different definition apart from the classical starting position and a different declaration of the objectives and outcomes.