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Identification of Unique Food Handling Practices That Could Represent Food Safety Risks for Minority Consumers
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Identification of Unique Food Handling Practices That Could Represent Food Safety Risks for Minority Consumers

Shauna C. Henley, Susan E. Stein and Jennifer J. Quinlan
Journal of food protection, v 75(11), pp 2050-2054
01 Nov 2012
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4315/0362-028X.JFP-12-146
PMID: 23127716
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.4315/0362-028x.jfp-12-146View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Open Access (Publisher-Specific),  Open

Abstract

Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology Food Science & Technology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Science & Technology
Foodborne illness caused by Salmonella and Campylobacter is a concern for consumers, and there is evidence that minority racial-ethnic populations experience greater rates of illness because of these pathogens. The limited body of research concerning food safety knowledge and practices among minority consumers has focused more on general food safety knowledge than on culturally specific food handling practices. The purpose of the research reported here was to explore food handling behaviors of minority racial-ethnic consumers through in-depth discussions in focus group settings. In this way, we hoped to identify potential unique, previously unidentified food handling practices among these consumers. Nine focus groups were held in Philadelphia, PA. Three focus groups were conducted with African American consumers, three with Hispanic consumers, and three with Asian consumers. In all, 56 consumers participated. Data were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for unique and potentially unsafe food handling behaviors. Potentially unsafe food handling practices identified among all three groups included extended time to transport food from retail to home and washing of raw poultry. Culturally unique behaviors within groups included (i) using hot water (Asian, Hispanic) or acidic solutions (African American, Hispanic) to clean raw poultry, (ii) purchasing live poultry (Asian, Hispanic), (iii) cooking poultry overnight (African American), and (iv) preparing bite-size pieces of meat prior to cooking (Asian, Hispanic). To have focus groups include a limited number of participants and nonrandom sampling means that these themes and trends cannot be extrapolated to represent food mishandling among these populations in general. Results presented here allow modification of an existing food safety survey to identify the prevalence of these food handling practices among consumers of different demographics.

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29 citations in Web of Science
41 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Web of Science research areas
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Food Science & Technology
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