Correlates of intention to practice good food hygiene among street food-vendors in Kadjebi District, Ghana

ABSTRACT

Food-borne illnesses arise from food contaminated by pathogenic microorganisms, mycotoxins or chemical hazards and this is a growing public health concern worldwide. This study identified the correlates of intention to practise good food hygiene among street food vendors in the Kadjebi District, Ghana using the expanded Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). This study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional design to collect data using a structured questionnaire from a random sample of 275 participants. Logistic regression analyses were performed at the 0.05 level of significance. The overall intention to practice good food hygiene was 83.6%. Overall, perceived barrier [Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) =27.79 (C.I: 10.40 to 74.27); p < 0.001] was the significant correlate of intention to practice good food hygiene. Overall, perceived self-efficacy was not a significant correlate of intention to practice good food hygiene. However, respondents who believed that they were not equipped with the needed skills to practice good food hygiene were less likely to have a high intention to practice it [AOR = 0.05 (C.I: 0.01 to 0.19); p < 0.001]. There is the need for health promotion strategies in the Kadjebi District to minimise barriers to good food hygiene practices and to empower street food vendors with the requisite skills to practice good food hygiene.

KEYWORDS:

• Food hygiene practice
• health belief model
• theory of planned behaviour
• street food vendors
• Kadjebi District
• Ghana

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the staff at the Kadjebi District Assembly for the approval and support to conduct the current study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

EET and CSF conceived and designed the study and analysed the data; CSF and EET collected the data; CSF, JAA, VOC and EET lead the writing of the manuscript and critically reviewed the manuscript; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.