Purpose
To identify a food source of an outbreak, public health officials interview sick people to find out what they ate before getting sick. This page has links to several standard questionnaires used.
National Hypothesis Generating Questionnaire (NHGQ)
The NHGQ collects a standard set of information about food and other exposures for all outbreak cases identified during a multistate investigation. For some multistate outbreaks, CDC works with state partners to use the NHGQ to collect the same information across many states. This helps investigators identify a common food source more quickly.