Use of a phone application to assess food safety practices at farmer’s markets (813.6)

Abstract

Traditional use of direct observation (DO) includes written records or audiovisual devices. These overt methods can cause artificial behavior change due to being observed (Hawthorne Effect (HE)) and results can be biased and less valid. A recent tool developed to perform DO is a smartphone application (PA) which allows researchers to collect data without intrusion while decreasing HE bias. A PA can be used to collect food safety behavior data to determine actual practices and which best practices need reinforcement. As consumers want fresh local produce, farmers markets (FM) are more popular and numbers have increased nationally. Using a PA for DO of food safety behaviors at FM can provide an accurate assessment of food safety handling practices by produce vendors. A PA was developed to assess food safety behaviors at FM during the summer of 2013. Assessment questions were developed, reviewed, entered online and uploaded in the PA technology. Twenty‐six produce vendors were observed at 14 FM for a mean of 18.3 ± 5.8 minutes. Six markets had <4 and 8 had 蠅4 vendors. The 5 most observed products were tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, and lettuce. Common observed practices that impact produce food safety included eating, talking on the phone, and touching money and then touching produce. Future research using PA could determine gaps in behaviors that will be used in the development of food safety training for FM vendors.Grant Funding Source: Supported by URI/AES, Regional Project S‐1056