Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Food Hygiene among Food Vendors in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Food vendors play a critical food safety role in the "farm to plate" continuum that is necessary for the prevention and control of food borne diseases and therefore, any lack of its understanding by the food vendors poses a serious challenge to food safety. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and hygienic practices of food vendors in Owerri town of Imo State, Nigeria. Methods: The study was a Cross-Sectional descriptive design that used a proportionate convenience sampling technique to select 200 food vendors from the three Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Owerri town. Data were collected using a pretested semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaire. Descriptive analyses were done with frequencies and summary statistics. Chi square statistics were computed to determine significant relationships and p value was set at 0.05 significant level. Results: While a majority of the respondents had a good level of knowledge (81%) and positive attitude (71%) about food hygiene, only 37% of the respondents had a good level of hygienic practice. It was revealed that 32% and 46% of the respondents received training on food hygiene and environmental health worker inspection respectively. It was also revealed that, there were statistically significant relationships between knowledge (p = 0.001), attitude (p = 0.000), formal training on food hygiene (p = 0.000) and the level of food hygienic practices. Conclusion: The public health management of food vending services should involve the development of strategies that will equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills to provide vending services in a hygienic and safe manner.How to cite this paper: Iwu, A.C.,

Risk factors associated with retail meat vendors in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo

“…The majority had a poor score (82.7%), and the others had a fair score (17.3%). In Owerri Town in Nigeria also, vendors who had a poor level of knowledge in food hygiene showed poor hygienic practices (Iwu et al, 2017). Similar findings were reported in developing countries like Soudan and Western Africa, among others (Barro et al, 2007;Abdalla et al, 2008).…”

“…Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License basic food safety notions, improper handling of food and ignorance of storage processes of foodstuff (Stratev et al, 2017). Considering the regional difference, Africa shows the highest burden per population of foodborne diseases (Iwu et al, 2017). Mishandling of foodstuff may lead to spread of the initial contamination of raw food and cross-contamination of cooked food with pathogens such as bacteria and lead to foodborne diseases (Akabanda et al, 2017).…”

Knowledge, attitudes and practices of food hygiene among mobile food vendors in a Nigerian rural settlement

“…22,23 Majority of the food vendors acquired their knowledge of food hygiene through workshops and seminars which contrasts with findings from other studies where mass media was the common source of information on food hygiene. 24,25 Though the mobile food vendors were not registered by the Local Government, the Local Government had organized a workshop for them on food hygiene which is a laudable effort as this workshop may have been a reason for the relatively high knowledge of food hygiene in this sample. This shows that the vendors are willing to attend Government organized workshops on food hygiene and the Onus lies on the local government to organise these.…”

“…This finding is in concordance with finding from similar studies. 25,26 The WHO and FAO have recommended that food handlers should be medically examined as a means to prevent the transmission of communicable diseases amongst food handlers and consumers. 1,5 Even though more than three-quarters (76.5%, n=156) of the food vendors knew the need for periodic medical check-up, only half of them actually carried out this periodic medical check-up.…”

Knowledge and personal hygiene practice among food handlers in public university campus of Bangladesh

“…The global burden of food borne diseases in 2010 was 33 million healthy life years lost (DALY) with about 600 million food borne illnesses and 420,000 deaths. 1 So food hygiene are given more emphasis in modern times. 2 Food hygiene largely depends upon the state of personal hygiene and habits of the personnel (food handlers) prepared food both in the home and in the food establishments (hotel and restaurant).…”