The District needs to do more to inform citizens about the results of health inspections at restaurants, food safety advocates said Thursday.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest analyzed 539 restaurant inspection reports from 20 cities, including 30 District restaurants.

It found numerous problems, including understaffing. CSPI said the results indicate most inspectors are busy. The the ratio of food establishments to inspectors was best in Atlanta, with Washington closer to the bottom. The city has 21 inspectors for its 5,000 restaurants.

But the biggest problem researchers had when it came to the District was getting ahold of what the inspectors had uncovered.

"While restaurant food safety is a big problem, their access to results is woefully inadequate," CSPI's staff attorney Sarah Klein said, referring to the District's health department.

Unlike many areas, including Virginia, the District does not post health inspection results online. When CSPI requested 30 reports from high-, middle- and low-end restaurants on paper, the group said it took six months to receive 25, showing an average of one code violation per site. Maryland counties have separate systems for reporting violations.

» read the health department's statement

The D.C. Health Department says patrons can always ask to see the restaurant's latest report, which should be kept on-hand by the restaurant. The health department also says lists of closed or suspended restaurants are published once a week in the Washington Post.

The worst offenses were unclean food surfaces, improper food holding temperatures, employee handwashing problems, and rodents and insects infestations.

CPSI Restaurant Survey Results

26% - contaminated surfaces

22% - improper holding temperatures

16%- employee hand-washing problems

13%- rodent or insect activity

According to CSPI, 40 percent of the food-borne illness outbreaks were linked to restaurant foods, while only 22 percent were linked to food prepared in private homes.

While many people spend a lot of time deciding where to eat, many say they don't focus on health grades.

"I don't think about it very much, but you're reminding me I should."

"I've gone with: Is it a popular place, word of mouth, I guess?," said Kimberly Webster.

The CSPI recommends a letter grading system that would be posted in restaurant windows. Los Angeles County has used a similar program for a decade.

"We're not asking health departments to do any more," said Klein. "But make information more accessible to consumers."

Las Vegas and St. Louis have adopted the letter grade system recently.

Klein says, "a letter grade in the window has proven to be one of the most powerful incentives for restaurants to perform well on inspections."