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.