Abstract:
The risk of food getting contaminated depends largely on the health status of the food
handlers, their personal hygiene, knowledge and practice of food hygiene. To this effect
the aim of the study was to evaluate the hygienic knowledge and practices between urban
and rural food vendors at lorry parks. The objectives of the study is to evaluate the
hygienic knowledge level of food vendors at the lorry parks, assess the level of hygienic
practices among food vendors at the lorry parks and determine the ways of improving the
hygienic knowledge and practices of food vendors at the lorry parks. A descriptive crosssectional
study was used to evaluate the hygienic knowledge and practices between
urban and rural food vendors at lorry parks. Two hundred and sixty (260) food vendors
were randomly selected for the study, comprising one hundred and thirty (130) food
vendors at Ho market (Urban) and one hundred and thirty (130) food vendors at
Sogakope (Rural) lorry parks in the Volta Region. A self-designed structured
questionnaire was used to collect data from 260 food vendors. Data collected through
various methods were inputted, processed and analysed by using IBM SPSS-20.0
Statistics. The study found that majority of urban (72.0%) food vendors have knowledge
on how to store leftover food to avoid food poisoning as compared to the rural (32.6%)
food vendors. The study affirmed that 15.2% of the urban and 4.1% of the rural food
vendors ensure proper food hygienic practices by washing utensil in hot water. Based on
this it was concluded the urban food vendors demonstrated good knowledge on hygienic
than rural food vendors, but low in hygienic practices. It was recommended that safety
and hygienic inspectors at Ho municipality should advice the vendors on using hot water
for utensils and hand-washing. Regular inspections should be carried out in order to
improve the knowledge level and hygienic practices of the food vendors and funding on
Environmental Health activities.
Description:
A Dissertation in the Department of HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM EDUCATION,
Faculty of VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, submitted to the School of Graduate Studies,
University of Education, Winneba, and in partial fulfillment of requirement for the award
of the Master of Technology (Catering and Hospitality) degree.