Article

Factors affecting Food handling among Food handlers in Lira city west division in Lira city

Abstract

Food born illness has been associated with poor practices of food handling among food handlers who provides food to public as raw or cooked food. Nevertheless, it is considered important for food handlers to observe strict hygienic practices during the process of cleaning, cooking, packaging and storing food for human consumption. It has been noted that services providers in food markets always fail to abide by the protocols in handling food for human consumption. The study determined factors affecting food handling among food handlers in Lira city west division, Lira city. The study employed descriptive cross-sectional survey design with quantitative data collection method among 145 food handlers who constituted the study participants. Data was collected with used of closed-ended questionnaires and then afterwards analyzed through used of spas version 20. The study found out that 88.3% of the respondents were knowledgeable about safe food handling based on the evidenced that the majority had secondary level of education. Additionally, knowledge was not found to factors affecting food handling among food handler. in support to that, the environmental factors such as cleaning of utensils with towel and poor waste disposal practices in water channels and open spaced were noted to have negative effects on food handling. Furthermore, the socio-cultural factors such as bad practice of eating while serving customers, practice of not wear apron and covering of head (Hair) were found to be associated with food contamination among food handlers.

Keywords: Food born infections, Food handlers, Food safety and Hygienic food practices