Educational Intervention Aimed at Street Food Vendors to Improve Knowledge and Practices on Food Safety and Hygiene

Abstract : Background: Street foods is ready- to- eat foods and beverages prepared which are sold by vendors in streets and other public places for immediate consumption or consumption at a later time without further processing or preparation. Street vended foods forms a distinctive part of food industry because they are mostly affordable, easily accessible. Food handlers play an important role in food safety and in transmission of food poisoning, because they can introduce pathogens into foods during production, processing, distribution and serving. Therefore, the understanding of food safety procedures and the potential factors that causes food borne diseases is very essential for all food handlers. Objective: The study was conducted with the objective of assessing the level of knowledge and practices on food safety and hygiene in street food vendors and improve the knowledge and practices through an educational intervention targeting the street food vendors. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the knowledge and practices of the street food vendors. An educational intervention was carried out using the mode of one-to-one knowledge sharing discussion facilitated by pictorial materials. The intervention was conducted in all street food vendors in a selected medical Officer of Health area in the Colombo district. Similar MOH area in the Colombo district was used as the control area. Interviewer administered questionnaire was used to assess the level of knowledge and a checklist was used to assess the practices. Results: The knowledge and practices level were not satisfactory in the baseline study. The knowledge improved in a statistically significant proportion (P0.05). Conclusions: The intervention was successful in improving the knowledge of the street food vendors significantly. However, the practice level did not show a statistically significant improvement