Documents Smith, Katherine C. 2 results

"Background: Foodborne disease is a significant problem worldwide. Research exploring sources of outbreaks indicates a pronounced role for food workers' improper health and hygiene practice. Objective: To investigate food workers' perceptions of factors that impact proper food safety practice. Method: Interviews with food service workers in Baltimore, MD, USA discussing food safety practices and factors that impact implementation in the workplace. A social ecological model organizes multiple levels of influence on health and hygiene behavior. Results: Issues raised by interviewees include factors across the five levels of the social ecological model, and confirm findings from previous work. Interviews also reveal many factors not highlighted in prior work, including issues with food service policies and procedures, working conditions (e.g., pay and benefits), community resources, and state and federal policies. Conclusion: Food safety interventions should adopt an ecological orientation that accounts for factors at multiple levels, including workers' social and structural context, that impact food safety practice."

"Food workers' health and hygiene are common pathways to foodborne disease outbreaks. Improving food system jobs is important to food safety because working conditions impact workers' health, hygiene, and safe food handling. Stakeholders from key industries have advanced working conditions as an issue of public safety in the United States. Yet, for the food industry, stakeholder engagement with this topic is seemingly limited. To understand this lack of action, we interviewed key informants from organizations recognized for their agenda-setting role on food-worker issues. Findings suggest that participants recognize the work standards/food safety connection, yet perceived barriers limit adoption of a food safety frame, including more pressing priorities (e.g., occupational safety); poor fit with organizational strategies and mission; and questionable utility, including potential negative consequences. Using these findings, we consider how public health advocates may connect food working conditions to food and public safety and elevate it to the public policy agenda."