The ACT's infection rate of a key bacteria that causes gastroenteritis, campylobacter, was almost 1.5 times the national average last year, new data shows.
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Laboratory-confirmed cases of the bacterial infection in the ACT have been consistently above the national average since at least 2012, with the latest disease data showing Canberra had a rate of 148.6 cases for every 100,000 people, compared to 101.9 across the country.
Similar rates were recorded in the previous three years, ACT Health's communicable diseases database shows, with Canberra's rate between 60 and 32 cases per 100,000 residents above the national average from 2013 to 2015.
And while outbreaks of salmonella, such as two spates at local cafes in recent weeks, are rare, the data also shows a steadily increasing rate of those infections cases, both nationally and in the ACT, over several years.
Those figures have risen from 39.2 cases per 100,000 people in the ACT in 2006 to 68.5 cases per 100,000 people last year.
Salmonella and campylobacteriosis are two of the most common causes of gastroenteritis in the community, the former primarily related to consumption of undercooked eggs and the latter linked to undercooked chicken.
ACT Chief Health Officer Paul Kelly said while the directorate was aware of the higher rate for campylobacteriosis, it was unclear what was driving the higher number of recorded cases in Canberra.
He said it could be down to a number of variables, from human behaviour - whether people visit a doctor when the contract gastroenteritis - to individual doctors' diagnosis and testing practices, or pathology case reporting differences between jurisdictions.
"When a positive test comes out in a laboratory in the ACT, the laboratory by law must notify us," he said.
"But that's really only the tip of the iceberg in a way, because by the time a faecal sample arrives in a laboratory, it means that the person has gone to see a doctor, the doctor has recognised the problem and ordered the right test and the test results have come back positive."
Dr Kelly said the changes over time could be down to several factors, including higher numbers of people eating out at cafes and restaurants, fewer people buying frozen chicken (freezing kills campylobacter), rather than fresh chicken, and rising consumption of chicken and eggs.
He said the "key message" people needed to remember was food hygiene, and the best way to kill such bacteria was to sterilise knives and cutting boards in boiling water, and to avoid cross-contamination between chicken, eggs and other food or cooking utensils.
