Objective: To understand behaviors and influence factors on household food safety among caregivers of child aged 3-12 years old.
Methods: A total of 12 449 caregivers of children aged 3-12 years were selected using random sampling method in Shanghai Municipality, Sichuan and Hebei Provinces from September 2018 to December 2018. A city and a rural district were chosen from each region points, respectively, then 3-4 kindergartens and 2-3 primary schools were randomly selected. A self-administrated questionnaire was distributed to parents and collected timely, focused on the information of behaviors on food safety. Binary logistic regression was used to multiple-factor regression analysis on food safety behavior of children caregivers.
Results: The average score of household food safety behaviors in three provinces was 13.5(11.0-16.0), and the pass rate of correct behavior was 47.8%. The main problems included the correct defrost of frozen food(3.4%), the storage of food with anti-rat, cockroach, fly facilities(12.8%), never eat leftovers or if leftovers in the refrigerator at home, thoroughly heating(26.3%), and the preparation of raw and cooked food using separate cutting boards/knives(32.4%). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that the pass rate of correct behavior in Hebei was lower than that in Shanghai, the odds ratio(OR) was 0.873(95%CI 0.794-0.960); parents aged 31-40, 41-50 and above of 50 was higher than that of parents aged 18-30, OR were 1.391(95%CI 1.247-1.552), 1.836(95%CI 1.589-2.121) and 1.954(95%CI 1.269-3.009), respectively; the education level of junior college and above was higher than that of primary school and below, OR was 1.392(95%CI 1.088-1.781) and 1.466(95%CI 1.148-1.870), respectively; the median and high level of family economic income were higher than the low level of income, with an OR value of 1.396(95%CI 1.260-1.547) and 2.543(95%CI 2.069-3.126), respectively; the incidence of food poisoning in the past six months was higher than that without food poisoning, with an OR value of 1.639(95%CI 1.336-2.010).
Conclusion: The correct behaviors level on food safety is relative low.
Keywords: caregivers; children; food safety; household.