
Finding the Most Unhygienic Food in the UK - lelf
http://blog.wolfram.com/2016/07/21/finding-the-most-unhygienic-food-in-the-uk/
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RobAley
The trouble with analysis like these is the lack of domain specific knowledge.
For instance the author states that it is suspicious that some authorities
inspect 100% of food businesses, speculating that new ones must take a while
to appear on their radar. In fact new food businesses must register 30 days
before they open. I opened a coffee shop in Oxford (the authors city by
coincidence) back in 2010. I was inspected the day I opened for business, and
many other authorities try to do the same.

Open data is great, but there is always the temptation to assume it includes
everything you need to know.

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orf
> I was inspected the day I opened for business

Is this the correct way to inspect though? I mean if you've just opened
everything is going to hopefully be shiny and new. If you left it a month
before inspecting you might get a better picture.

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mrob
It will still find problems like incorrect food storage temperatures and cross
contamination. These are probably more dangerous than general dirtiness, so it
might be a good tradeoff to catch these early at the cost of missing lesser
problems.

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mmanfrin
What a neat visualization, but falls on its face by implying mean score
correlates to poor hygiene. Certainly one would want to avoid low-scoring
restaurants, but if a region has a high mean score it could mean _lax
enforcement_ and lower regional mean could indicate stricter enforcement.

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falsedan
I'd love to see this analysis linked to (say) Yelp reviews complaining about
food-poisoning (ala [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-
health/wp/2014/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-
health/wp/2014/05/22/how-new-york-used-yelp-to-find-unreported-cases-of-food-
poisoning/)). That would make it easier to spot when the health agency ratings
don't match actual consumer health experience.

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coroxout
Are you allowed to complain about food poisoning on Yelp?

My town, which coincidentally happens to be Oxford like in the article, has
its own local site "Daily info" which includes user-submitted restaurant
reviews, and the review form asks you not to make allegations of food
poisoning (presumably for legal reasons) and to submit possible food poisoning
reports to the local authorities for investigation instead.

I note the Chinese takeaway I got food from last week shows up on this map as
a bright red blob...

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falsedan

      > Are you allowed to complain about food poisoning on Yelp?
    

In the US, sure. UK libel laws could be used to suppress 'food poisoning'
without a doctor's note, but I think you'd be pretty safe to say
'sick'/'vomit'/'diarrhea'.

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jbb555
Interesting, The graphs seem to correlate very highly with population density
from just looking. I wonder if that is a cause, coincidence, or something in
the calculations?

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dom96
Awesome to see Craigavon as the most hygienic place, I love very close and
used to go to school there.

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morekozhambu
I'd want to see how this correlates to say, the revenue the hotel makes.

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jamiegreen
Last I checked, Scotland was still part of the UK, yet this data for the
'whole country' doesn't even reach as far North as Newcastle.

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falsedan
Scotland use a Pass/Fail rating, which doesn't suit his algorithms.

