Accessing Safe Food Handling Practices and their Determinants among Canadian Households with Children

Abstract

This thesis investigates domestic setting food safety practices of primary food preparers for children in Canada. The first study was a systematic review that focused on understanding trends in the prevalence of food safety knowledge and practices among parents or caregivers of young children. Key findings include a lack of knowledge and use of food thermometers and components of safe storage practices (i.e., chilling and reheating). Our meta-regression model also shows that hand hygiene before meal preparation and keeping leftovers out of the “danger zone” improved recently. The second study used logistics regression models to identify which socio-demographic factors influence parents'/caregivers' safe food handling practices in Canadian households with children. We found that families with high income and education levels demonstrated poor hand hygiene and unsafe food storage practices. Moreover, families with two or more children, men, and those living in urban areas are key groups that need to be targeted for safe food-handling interventions.