NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, FOOD SAFETY AND HYGIENIC PRACTICES OF STREET FOOD VENDORS IN THE TAMALE METROPOLIS OF GHANA

Increasingly most people have their meals outside their homes and are vulnerable to illness caused by unsafe food. Unsafe food preparation and supply by vendors have made food safety a concern for public health. Tamale is a densely populated city in the northern part of Ghana and many food vendors abound. This study evaluated the nutrition knowledge, attitude, and food safety and hygienic practices of food vendors in the Tamale Metropolis of the Northern region, Ghana. An analytical cross-sectional study on nutrition knowledge, attitudes towards, and food safety and hygienic practices was conducted among 424 food vendors. Convenience sampling technique was used to collect data using a structured questionnaire and analysed with Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS V20). In all 83.5% were female food vendors, 47.2% had received training on food safety and 49.1% cooked their food on the site. The mean ± SD score for nutrition knowledge was 7.08 ± 1.75 in which majority of the respondents (68.6 %) knew foods that help fight disease and builds immunity. The mean ± SD food safety and hygienic practice score was 7.61 ± 2.66 with more than half of the respondents reportedly did not use hand gloves while preparing and serving food. Factors that were associated with food safety and hygienic practices of the street food vendors were level of education (beta = -0.36, p < 0.001), number of hours worked (beta = 0.15, p = 0.002), food hygiene and safety knowledge (beta = 0.21, p = 0.002), having a business certificate (beta = -0.15, p = 0.004), and having medical check-up (beta = 0.11, p = 0.029). The food safety and hygienic practices of the street food vendors were generally unsafe and may constitute food safety risk to consumers. Improving the food safety and hygiene knowledge may be an important at improving the food safety and hygienic practices of street food vendors.