Making sense of a mountain of data, one byte at a time

Getting Web database took months of requests, wrangling.

July 31, 2005

For the analysis of restaurant inspections, The Morning Call contacted every agency in its Pennsylvania circulation area that inspects restaurants, school cafeterias, church kitchens and other food establishments.

Reporters used the state's Right-to-Know Law to collect more than 78,000 inspection records for thousands of establishments in the Lehigh Valley and region. The newspaper also gathered another 120,000 records to cover establishments spread across the rest of the state.

All of these records were put into databases that you can search online through the newspaper's Web site: http://www.mcall.com/foodsafety

For this story, reporters also looked at other data, including U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics and fines levied by local agencies, and interviewed more than 100 sources, including restaurant owners, chefs, inspectors, agency officials, researchers, health professionals, interest groups and politicians.

The access to the information for the searchable database varied from place to place:

Easiest to access

The following agencies provided five years of computerized records (2000-2004): the Allentown Health Bureau, the Bucks and Montgomery county health departments and the state Department of Agriculture, which covers 47,000 restaurants in the state mostly in places that do no have their own inspectors.

Paper records

The following communities provided three years of paper records (2002-2004), which the newspaper entered into databases: the city of Bethlehem; Catasauqua, Coplay, Fountain Hill and Slatington boroughs in Lehigh County; Bath, Northampton, Portland, West Easton and Wilson boroughs in Northampton County; Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg boroughs in Monroe County; and the borough of Boyertown in Berks County.

No data

Inspectors for the boroughs of Hellertown and North Catasauqua in Northampton County and Coaldale and Tamaqua in Schuylkill County said they do not fill out reports when they conduct inspections, so no data for those municipalities are available.

Two months' effort

Easton agreed to release its food inspection records last week, but only after more than two months of legal correspondence and a meeting of lawyers. The city also said it lost its inspection records up through 2004 in flooding, but had records for this year.

No public access

The boroughs of Coopersburg and Emmaus in Lehigh County refused to provide the records, saying the inspection reports are not public information. The Morning Call is appealing their decisions.

Recent requests

Food inspection reports were requested Thursday from Carbon County municipalities, including Lehighton, Weatherly, Bowmanstown, Jim Thorpe, Lansford and Palmerton. If and when the information is received, it will be added to the database.