For the current observational and self-reporting studies regarding hand washing during food preparation besides country differences and demographic differences, there is a lack of studies with more than one country. There are reports about consumer hygiene in the kitchen from many countries, but they are scattered in time and place. These data indicate the need for further investigations regarding consumers’ hand hygiene practices since it is a key element for the prevention of foodborne diseases. You know, during that time, washing hands for 20 s or checking the cooking temperature is just difficult.”. Observational studies indicate that during cooking, many consumers do not follow the recommended hand washing procedure but just rinse their hands and state reasons like: “ My schedule is very tight in the evening. Kendall et al., found a good correlation between observed practices and answers recived when questioning people about washing hands, but only if rinsing hands is also considered as being a washing hands procedure. To prevent the risk of foodborne illness, official bodies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommend washing hands with warm water and soap for 20 s prior to beginning food preparation and at key moments (e.g., after wiping the counter or other surfaces with chemicals, touching the garbage, using the toilet, etc.). Hand hygiene is even of greater importance for vulnerable consumers such as the elderly, children, and pregnant women. Research revealed that consumers who wash hands before preparing food reported less foodborne illnesses than those who did not. Several studies revealed that hand washing with soap reduces the risk of diarrhoeal disease by 23 – 48%, and the risk of respiratory infections by 21 – 23%. Hand washing with water and soap has proven to be an effective method in preventing/reducing the risk of infectious diseases. Many countries do not report household outbreaks and most probably illness acquired in households often appears sporadically and people do not always seek medical help. The number of foodborne diseases at the domestic level is underreported and lacks consistency for a number of reasons. Inadequate consumer food preparation practices (e.g., cross-contamination, insufficient heat treatment) in the household environment were the most commonly reported cause of outbreaks. In the same year, a total number of 2,495 hospitalisations and 31 outbreak-related deaths were reported. In 2021, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) reported 4,005 foodborne outbreaks, and 32,543 foodborne illnesses. Public health burden generated by improper hand washing may be significantly reduced if education is targeted on consumers’ behaviour and practices. Information and education should point both at the key moments as suggested by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH) and safe practices. Overall, taking into consideration the likelihood of washing hands after touching raw chicken and the percentages scores for proper hand cleaning methods and key moments for hand washing, the rank of the countries regarding proper hand hygiene practices was the following: Denmark, Greece, Norway, Romania, Hungary, Germany, UK, Portugal, France, and Spain. Meanwhile, families with children under the age of 6 reported being up to twice as likely to wash their hands at critical moments compared to families without children. ResultsĪccording to the regression models, families with elderly members aged over 65 showed a higher tendency to follow proper hand washing practices compared to families without elderly members. Regression analyses were used to check the relation between demographic characteristics, country of origin and self-reported hand hygiene practices.
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SPSS Statistics 26 (IBM Software Group, Chicago, IL) was used for the descriptive and regression analyses of the data. The survey questions were based on recommended hand hygiene practices and on observed practices from a field study performed in 90 European households from six of the countries covered by the survey (France, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Romania, and UK). The research design consisted of a cross-national quantitative consumer survey regarding food safety and hygiene practices during meal preparation (SafeConsume project) and was conducted in ten European countries (France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain and UK).
The aim of this paper was to map consumers’ food hygiene practices from 10 European countries and evaluate which demographic groups are more likely to be exposed to foodborne pathogens and establish a ranking of adherence to food hygiene practices in 10 European countries.
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