Abstract:
Background: Food borne illness is more common in both developed and developing
country. In developing countries up to an estimated 70% of cases of diarrheal disease are
associated with the Consumption of contaminated foods. Approximately 10 to 20% of
food-borne disease outbreaks are due to contamination by the food handler. Nevertheless,
data regarding food safety practice and associated factors in low-income countries like
Ethiopia are very minimal, including the study area.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the magnitude of food safety
practice and associated factors among food Handlers in public food establishments of Godey
town, Somali region from February 7 to 17, 2018.
Methods and materials: institutional based cross sectional study design was used, on390
food handlers working in all 109 public food establishments in Godey town. Data collection
was done by four diploma nurse by using structured pretested questionnaire and institutional
observation checklist. Data were entered on to Epi Data version 3.0 computer software and
exported to SPSS version 20 computer software for analyzes. Accordingly, descriptive
statistics was used to describe the independent variables in relation to the outcome variable
Bivariable, logistic regression analyses were done to see the association between each
independent variable and the outcome variable. All variables with p-value <0.25 during
bivariable were entered in to multiple logistic regression models to control for all possible
confounders and to identify factors associated with the outcome variable. Odds ratio along
with 95%CI were estimated to measure the strength of the association. Finally, level of
statistical significant was declared at p-value <0.05.
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Results: the prevalence of satisfactory food safety practice of food handlers was 20.9%
[95%CI: 16.7, 24.8]. In multivariable logistic regression analysis having knowledge about
food safety [AOR= 10.4, 95%CI: (4.6, 23.81)], presence of hand washing facility for food
handlers [AOR=6.5, 95%CI: (2.7, 15,3)] and presence of supervision [AOR=3.08, 95%CI:
(1.3,7.12)].were statistically significant factors associated with food safety practice?
Conclusion: The prevalence of satisfactory food safety practice among food handlers was
low in this study, knowledge about food safety, hand washing facility, and supervision were
factors associated with food safety practice.
