A study of personal hygiene among food handlers in Panaji city, Goa

Abstract

Background: Food is an elementary requirement for human survival. Food handlers are essential components in the link between the environment of cooking food and the prepared or served food. Food handlers with poor personal hygiene employed in food establishments could be likely sources of infection. Hence this study was undertaken to evaluate the personal hygiene among various food handlers in the city of Panaji, Goa.Methods: This cross sectional study was carried out among 227 study participants in 12 food establishments registered under corporation of city Panaji for duration of 18 months (September 2015 to February 2017). Sampling was done by stratified random sampling.Results: Out of the 227 food handlers, only 65 (28.6%) of the study participants used head caps while cooking. Only 70 (30.8%) had clean nails at the time of examination. As per the scale of scoring it was observed that majority i.e. 112 (49.4%) had fair personal hygiene, 77 (33.9%) had poor personal hygiene and only 38 (16.7%) had good personal hygiene. There was significant statistical association between the personal hygiene of the study participants and the training received in food safety.Conclusions: Personal hygiene levels among the food handlers were found to be sub-standard indicating essentiality of creating awareness among the food handlers regarding importance of maintaining good personal hygiene and food hygiene.