Evaluation of Foodservice Workers' Food Safety Knowledge and Practices at Senior Welfare Centers

The purpose of this study was to evaluate food safety practices and knowledge of foodservice workers at senior welfare centers. A self-administrated questionnaire was administered to 1200 foodservice workers at senior welfare centers in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi province. Two hundred five responses were returned, with 181 usable for analysis. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS for Windows(ver.14.0). Volunteers of respondents comprised 64.1% while chefs and employees comprised 20.9%. Food safety practices were assessed using a 5-point scale(1: strongly disagree - 5: strongly agree), and the average score of food safety practices was 4.27. For specific practices, 'personal hygiene (4.46)' scored the highest, followed by 'cleaning and sanitizing(4.43)', 'separate handing(4.40)', 'cooking process(4.11)', and 'receiving and storing(4.05)'. There were significant differences in the practice average score by age(p