Department of Public Health Medicine, School of Nursing and Public Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Syst Rev. 2019 Oct 25;8(1):240. doi: 10.1186/s13643-019-1164-8.
Food control is defined as a mandatory regulatory activity of enforcement aimed at ensuring that all foods during production, handling, storage, processing, and distribution are safe, wholesome, and fit for human consumption; conform to safety and quality requirements; and are honestly and accurately labeled as prescribed by law. This applies to food served by the conventional food supply chain as well as the charitable food assistance programs (CFAPs). This review sought to map the available evidence on the food control in the CFAPs globally.
In order to identify the literature, we developed a series of search terms, as well as parameters for including articles to review the literature using African Index Medicus, PubMed, Google Scholar, and EBSCOhost (MEDLINE with full text, Academic search complete, MEDLINE) search engines. Articles were also searched through the "Cited by" search as well as citations included in the reference lists of included articles. We included studies reported in all languages and published from inception to 2018. We included studies if they presented evidence of the CFAPs, namely food banks, food charitable organizations (FCOs), pantries, community soup kitchens, and emergency shelters. We presented the results of our search using thematic analysis in order to reveal the emerging themes.
Beyond inconsistencies with the classification of the CFAPs, our study found significant knowledge gaps in crucial areas, namely food vulnerability, food traceability, vulnerability of beneficiary populations, and lack of food control. Our search yielded a total of 23 articles, which we included in the analysis. Results show that while food is the critical commodity to saving lives, if not controlled properly, it can have an adverse effect, especially on people it is meant to benefit (the vulnerable).
With no previous comprehensive review to assess what is known about food control in the CFAPs, we undertook a scoping review, focusing on mapping the key concepts, including the main sources and types of evidence available. By drawing conclusions about the overall state of research activity and identifying research gaps and priorities in the existing literature, this study provides a baseline assessment of the CFAP research published in peer-reviewed journals from inception to 2018.
食品控制是指一项强制性的监管活动，旨在确保生产、处理、储存、加工和分销过程中的所有食品都是安全、卫生且适合人类食用的；符合安全和质量要求；并按照法律规定如实准确地标注。这适用于传统食品供应链供应的食品以及慈善食品援助计划（CFAP）。本综述旨在绘制全球 CFAP 食品控制的现有证据图谱。
为了确定文献，我们开发了一系列搜索词，并制定了纳入文章的参数，以便使用非洲医学索引、PubMed、Google Scholar 和 EBSCOhost（带有全文的 MEDLINE、学术搜索完整版、MEDLINE）搜索引擎对文献进行综述。还通过“被引”搜索以及纳入文章的参考文献列表中的引文对文章进行搜索。我们纳入了以所有语言发表的并从创建之初到 2018 年发表的研究。如果研究报告了 CFAP，即食品银行、食品慈善组织（FCO）、食品储藏室、社区汤厨房和紧急避难所，我们将其纳入研究。我们使用主题分析展示搜索结果，以揭示新兴主题。
除了与 CFAP 分类不一致外，我们的研究还发现了在关键领域存在严重的知识差距，即食品脆弱性、食品可追溯性、受益人群脆弱性和食品控制不足。我们的搜索共产生了 23 篇文章，我们将其纳入分析。结果表明，虽然食品是拯救生命的关键商品，但如果控制不当，它可能会产生不利影响，尤其是对那些本应受益的弱势群体。
由于之前没有全面的综述来评估 CFAP 中食品控制的情况，我们进行了范围综述，重点是绘制关键概念图，包括现有证据的主要来源和类型。通过总结研究活动的总体状态并确定现有文献中的研究差距和优先事项，本研究对 2018 年之前在同行评议期刊上发表的 CFAP 研究进行了基线评估。
