Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 30, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 1, 2018 - Jun 15, 2018
Date Accepted: Apr 3, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Knowledge, attitude, and practice of food handlers on food safety and personal hygiene, during Arbaeenia mass gathering, Baghdad, Iraq, 2014
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
Millions of pilgrims attend Arbaeenia Mass Gathering (MG) in Iraq each year. Thousands of individuals work voluntarily at temporary rest areas (locally called Mawakib) distributed in the majority of Iraq governorates to provide food and other services to the MG attendees. The potential for improper handling of food at Mawakib enhances the risk for water and foodborne diseases.
Objective:
Objective:
This study assessed the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of food handlers in Mawakib in Baghdad city during Arbaeenia MG.
Methods:
Methods:
A random sample of 100 Mawakib was selected in Baghdad, half from the eastern side (Russafa) and half from the western side (Karkh), and five food handlers were randomly selected from each Mawakib. A questionnaire was used to collect demographic data, and knowledge, attitude, and practice for food safety and personal hygiene. The questionnaire included 25 questions addressed knowledge, 10 addressed attitudes and 14 addressed practices of the food handlers toward food safety and personal hygiene. Knowledge and attitudes questions were filled through direct interview with the food handlers while the practice questions were filled through direct observation while handling or serving the food.
Results:
Results:
There was a varied knowledge of food safety practices among the individuals interviewed. The overall average score of the attitude and practice for food safety and personal hygiene were both 2, on a scale of 3, which corresponds to fair attitude and practice. The attitudes varied significantly by location, age group and education, whereas practices varied by location, age groups, employment and previous experiences.
Conclusions:
Conclusions:
The food handlers had unsatisfactory attitudes and practices towards food handling and personal hygiene. Their participation in food handling at Mawakib carries a potential risk of spreading food and water borne diseases. All individuals intended to serve in Mawakib as food handlers should be licensed from Ministry of health after completing a formal training on food safety and personal hygiene and .
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.