qraLm

The qraLm R package is designed for conducting Quantitative Risk Assessments (QRA) for Listeria monocytogenes in various food products. These include frozen vegetables, ready-to-eat (RTE) diced cantaloupe, and cold-smoked fish. The package was developed as part of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meetings on Microbiological Risk Assessment (JEMRA).

Key Features

• Dose-Response Models: The package includes models to assess the risk based on different strain virulence and population susceptibility (age, health conditions).

• Monte Carlo Simulations: It supports simulations to estimate risks at various stages of the food production chain, from processing to consumer handling practices.

• Specific Food Pathways: Different modules represent distinct pathways for contamination and risk for each food type, such as blanching, packaging, and defrosting in frozen vegetables, or cross-contamination and processing stages in cold-smoked fish and cantaloupe.

• Shiny Application: A built-in Shiny app allows users to interactively simulate risk assessments for different food types and contamination scenarios.

Installation

• You can install qraLm from GitHub: https://github.com/WorldHealthOrganization/qraLm, using the devtools package, with the R code below.

• You must first install the doseresponsemodels package from GitHub: https://github.com/WorldHealthOrganization/doseresponsemodels/, which implements the dose-response models for Listeria monocytogenes.

• For Windows users it is recommended to install Rtools (https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/) before.

• The packages on which qraLm depends are: Hmisc, extraDistr, mc2d, matrixStats, DT, dplyr, ggplot2, plotly, doseresponsemodels and BH; you should install them before installing qraLm.

if (!require("devtools")) install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("WorldHealthOrganization/doseresponsemodels")
devtools::install_github("WorldHealthOrganization/qraLm")

Using qraLm

You can find the vignettes at the qraLm website: https://github.com/WorldHealthOrganization/qraLm/.

Reporting bugs

You can report bugs at: https://github.com/WorldHealthOrganization/qraLm/issues.