Nutritional Status of Children and Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude and Practices among Household Food Handlers Mothers Adigrat, Eastern Tigray Zone in Northern Ethiopia
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Date
2020-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Foodborne diseases is the major public health problem all over the world, particularly in
poor resource settings including the study area .The problem is more noticeable in the
study area due to lack of knowledge, inappropriate attitude and unacceptable practice of food
safety at household leve.l Thus, the main objective of this present study was to assess the food safety
knowledge, attitude and practices of food handler mothers and nutritional status of under five children
in the households in Adigrat town, Tigray region, Ethiopia. A total of 342 household food
handler mothers were selected randomly from the six kebeles. To perform this study, a
cross-sectional survey was carried out among food handlers’ households in the study
area, between Januarys and March. Moreover, Households food insecurity access scale
(HFIAS) was used to assess food security status of households, household food safety
KAP were assessed with regards to food handling, personal hygiene and water &
sanitation and nutritional measurements were used to assess children under five
nutritional status. Data was analyzed by using SPSS version 25. Nutrition status of
children Weight and height was used to calculate weight-for-age, weight-for-height and
height-for-age by using Emergency Nutritional Assessment (ENA for SMART 2011) in the
scale of WHO standards 2006. Results were presented using descriptive statistics and
cross tabulation. Chi-square was used to test differences among categorical variables
.The result of the present study showed that, low knowledge and poor practice in food
handling, personal hygiene and water sanitation. The level of food security was 2.2 %
food secure 27 % mild food insecurity 26.7% moderate food insecurity and 44.3%
severely food insecurity. The findings also showed that nutritional status of under five
children 28.8% wasting ,65% underweight , 51.4 stunted 48.3% MUAC chronic energy
deficiency. To cope with this problems governmental or non-governmental stake holders,
health extension workers should give education or trading on food safety and nutrition
.Temporary solution should join them in to productive safety net programs
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Keywords
Adigrat, Attitude, Food Safety, Food Security Knowledge, Practices