The Water Hygiene of Street Food Vendors in Southeast Asia: A Review

Abstract

The safety of street food vendors in Southeast Asian countries is of concern as many do not follow basic food safety principles. The water used to wash cutlery that is not hygienic may cause foodborne illnesses. Therefore, the general aim of this study was to summarize the water hygiene of street vendors in Southeast Asia. PRISMA guidelines were used to find suitable sources for this systematic review. Relevant studies are retrieved from several databases, such as Science Direct, PubMed, SAGE, EBSCOhost, Taylor and Francis, and Scopus. The keywords used to identify the relevant studies were water, water quality, hygiene, sanitation, street vendor, and food safety. The initial search in the databases yielded 80 articles. After the screening process based on the criteria of the article, only 9 articles were used in the final systematic review. The results showed that the water hygiene system in street vendors in Southeast Asia is still relatively unhygienic because most still use bucket water (non-tap water), which can contaminate food and lead to foodborne illness.