COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE HYGIENIC KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICES BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL FOOD VENDORS AT LORRY PARKS IN THE VOLTA REGION

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.