Food safety and sanitation: Awareness, attitude, and practices among street vendors

Abstract

This survey-correlational study, conducted on December 2019, aimed at ascertaining the street food vendors' awareness of, attitude towards, and practices related to food safety and sanitation. One hundred forty-seven (147) street food vendors in the City of Iloilo, chosen at random, served as participants of the study. A researcher-made data gathering instrument that include the Food Safety and Sanitation Awareness Test, the Rating Scale on Attitude Towards Food Safety and Sanitation, and the Rating Scale on Practices Related to Food Safety and Sanitation, was used gather the data. The instrument was submitted for face and content validation to a panel of experts and was trial tested for reliability. Frequency count, percentage analysis, mean, and standard deviation were employed as descriptive statistic, while the t-test for independent samples, the one-way analysis of variance, and the Pearson's r were employed as inferential statistics. The .05 alpha level was used as the criterion for the acceptance or rejection of the null hypotheses. The study found out that, generally, the street food vendors were fully aware, have positive attitude, and highly practiced food safety and sanitation. Finally, the street food vendors' attitude towards and practices related to food safety and sanitation were positively and significantly related.