SNHD Food Safety Culture

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Project Summary/Abstract Food safety has previously been declared a Winnable Battle by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a priority area for the Healthy People 2020 Initiative. Recent research proposes that negative food safety culture be considered an emerging risk factor for foodborne illness due to its significant impact in outbreaks (Griffith, Livesey, & Clayton, 2010a). Investigating food safety culture and how to improve it at the retail food establishment level may be one important route to reducing foodborne illness. The Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) plans to conduct a mixed methods sequential study to better understand and improve food safety culture. The specific aims will be to 1) utilize focus groups and surveys to solicit data directly from retail food handlers and management, 2) use study findings to create resources for retail food establishments to improve their food safety culture, which may improve adherence to food safety practices, thereby potentially reducing the transmission of foodborne illness at the retail food establishment level, and 3) disseminate findings to promote awareness of positive food safety culture and share improvement strategies. First, SNHD will conduct multiple preliminary focus groups with food handlers and separate focus groups with restaurant management. The goal of these will be identify examples of positive food safety culture, obstacles impeding positive food safety culture, and suggestions for ways to improve food safety culture. SNHD will conduct a thematic analysis on the focus group data to identify common themes. Then, SNHD will use this data to create a quantitative survey which will be distributed more broadly to food handlers and management within Southern Nevada to further understand food safety culture. Finally, SNHD will use the cumulative findings to create resources that will provide actionable suggestions for retail food establishments to improve food safety culture, which may improve food safety and reduce illness. The style and type of resource will depend on the findings, but SNHD is prepared to create infographics, a series of workshops, and a webinar. Additionally, SNHD will work to disseminate findings to promote the project to the food safety and environmental health communities via conferences, presentations, the SNHD website, and/or other available avenues.