Introduction. Food borne diseases are a serious public health problem. Poultry are often associatedwith these outbreaks.Objective. A systematic review of the literature is provided concerning the distribution and frequencyof food borne outbreaks associated with consumption of chicken contaminated with Salmonella spp.,Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus.Materials and methods. The search for studies of outbreaks associated with Salmonella, S. aureusand L. monocytogenes was conducted in Medline, Pubmed, Science Direct, Scielo, Cochrane Library(CCRT), Virtual Health Library (VHL), Highwire, HINARI and MedicLatina. Data were obtained for thecalculation of odds ratio (OR) by preparing contingency tables using the RevMan5 program.Results. Seven articles met the inclusion criteria; however, no reports of L. monocytogenes wereobtained. The overall OR was 3.01 (95% CI: 2.37, 3.81); this was interpreted as a significant associationbetween the consumption of contaminated chicken and food poisoning. In the included studiesheterogeneity (p= 0.03) was presented, so it took a subgroup analysis of microorganisms, in the caseof Salmonella OR was 2.67 (95% CI: 2.09 -3.41). No analysis was made for S. aureus reported a singlearticle.Conclusions. The OR indicated a strong association between chicken consumption and acquisition ofsalmonellosis. The main risk factor for acquiring salmonellosis is the consumption of chicken from grillrestaurants.doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7705/biomedica.v32i3.697