Salmonella Illness Outbreaks Attributed to Chicken by Product Type, United States, 1998-2022

Salmonella causes an estimated 1.35 million infections in the United States annually, with almost one-fifth of all salmonellosis illnesses attributed to chicken products. We reviewed Salmonella illness outbreaks attributed to chicken reported to the Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (FDOSS) with a date of first illness onset during 1998-2022 and determined the chicken product type associated with each outbreak using a standardized categorization scheme. We calculated the number of outbreaks, outbreak-associated illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths overall and by chicken product type; evaluated changes in the frequency and size of outbreaks over time using Mann-Kendall tests; and evaluated differences in the observed (as reported to FDOSS) versus expected (based on sales volume) proportion of outbreaks attributed to chicken product types using generalized linear models. During 1998-2022, there were 366 Salmonella illness outbreaks attributed to chicken, altogether responsible for 10,344 illnesses, 1,426 hospitalizations, and 12 deaths. The number of outbreaks and outbreak-attributed illnesses per year did not significantly change during the analysis period, overall or when stratified by chicken product type. Among outbreaks for which a product type could be identified (53.0%), chicken parts were the most implicated product type, representing 68.6% of outbreaks and 53.8% of illnesses. Reported chicken parts outbreaks were 5.6 times higher than expected given sales volume (odds ratio [OR] = 5.59; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.79, 8.24). Results suggest that multilayered prevention strategies along the farm-to-fork continuum are necessary to reduce and prevent Salmonella illnesses attributed to chicken; prevention efforts focused on raw chicken parts could have the greatest impact.