I am curious if it is safe to refrigerate foodstuffs like meat shortly after cooking or should it be cooled down to avoid bacterial accumulation like a stock?

This depends. If you have sliced meat on a platter, it will obviously cool down quite quickly to room temperature. If it is still a touch warm, we loosely cover it and transfer it to the refrigerator until it completely cools - then we cover it.

If the meat is in a sauce and it is hot, it is best to cool it down over an ice bath and then transfer it to the refrigerator. Placing a very hot item like this in the refrigerator is not food safe: 1) it will bring the internal temperature of the refrigerator down and affect other foods and 2) the center of the dish won't cool quickly and can promote the growth of bacteria.

Food safety is a bigger subject than what we can "safely" answer in a forum. When in doubt, cool things over an ice bath and transfer to the refrigerator as soon as possible.

Here are some links that you can refer to:

For more information on this here are a few other links related to food safety:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/securit/index-eng.php
http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/aspx/public/default2.aspx?id=449
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_zone_%28food_safety%29

Cheers!

Thanks Kimberly, that is helpful.