Food Safety Attitudes and Self-Reported Behaviours of Undergraduate Students at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)

Food safety;Attitudes;Self-reported behaviours;Young adults

Courtney, Sarahaffiliation1:Faculty of Applied Health Sciences ; advisor:Majowicz, Shannon ; Majowicz, Shannon ;

University of Waterloo

关键词: Young adults;    Master Thesis;    Attitudes;    Food safety;    Self-reported behaviours;   

Others  :  https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/10012/12439/5/Courtney_Sarah.pdf

瑞士|英语

来源: UWSPACE Waterloo Institutional Repository

【 摘 要 】

Introduction: In Canada, foodborne disease is an important public health issue. Rates offoodborne disease are usually highest among the young and elderly, but an increase in foodbornedisease incidence and prevalence is also observed among young adults. Foodborne diseases canbe prevented by properly preparing, cooking, and storing food, and the likelihood of individualsusing proper food handling and hygiene behaviours varies with their attitude towards food safety.Studies measuring the food safety attitudes and behaviours of young adults, and then exploringthe relationship between food safety attitudes and behaviours using relevant behaviour changetheories, have yet to be completed in Canada. Therefore, I explored what undergraduate studentsat the University of Waterloo think about food safety and what they do to prevent foodbornedisease by: (i) measuring students’ food safety attitudes; (ii) understanding students’ self-reportedfood safety behaviours; (iii) exploring if behaviour change theories can be used toexamine the relationship between attitudes and self-reported behaviours, and; (iv) exploring therelationship between students’ attitudes and behaviours.Methods: Existing data collected in February 2015 from 470 undergraduate students from theUniversity were analyzed. The attitudes and self-reported behaviours were analyzeddescriptively using frequency calculations, and using multiple linear or ordinal logisticregression to determine the significantly associated demographic and food skills and cookingexperience characteristics. In addition, the attitudes and self-reported behaviours were mappedagainst the constructs in previously applied behaviour change theories, as well as the COM-BModel. The theory with most even distribution of attitude and self-reported behaviour questionsacross the greatest number of theoretical constructs was selected as the framework to examinethe relationship between food safety attitudes and self-reported behaviours. Structural equationmodeling was then used to model the relationship between the collected food safety attitudes andself-reported behaviours, while adjusting for potential confounders.Results: In general, undergraduate students at the University of Waterloo had positive food safetyattitudes and self-reported behaviours. All attitudes, except for ;;anyone can get sick with foodpoisoning, even me”, and self-reported behaviours, except for ;;If I have a cut or sore on myhand, I cover it before preparing food” were significantly associated with one or more of the 13collected demographic and food skills and cooking experience characteristics. In addition, it wasdetermined that behaviour change theory can be used to examine the relationship between thecollected food safety attitudes and self-reported behaviours. Even though the Theory of PlannedBehaviour and the Health Belief Model had the most even distribution of attitude questionsacross the greatest number of theoretical constructs, all of the attitude and self-reportedbehaviour questions mapped to constructs in the COM-B Model, and it has not yet been appliedto food safety attitude and behaviour literature, so it was used to explore the relationship betweenfood safety attitudes and behaviours of young adults. Finally, using the COM-B Model, I foundthat some of the collected food safety attitudes were significantly associated with self-reportedfood safety behaviours.Conclusion: Undergraduate students at the University of Waterloo have good food safetyattitudes and self-reported behaviours, which, using the COM-B Model, were found to besignificantly associated. This is the first study to examine the food safety attitudes and selfreportedbehaviours of exclusively young adults in Canada, as well as the association betweenboth food safety attitudes and self-reported behaviours, and demographic and cooking skills andexperience characteristics other than gender or race. In addition, this is the first study to apply thenewly developed COM-B Model to food safety attitudes and self-reported behaviours. Futureresearch should build on this thesis by examining undergraduate students’ observed food safetybehaviours to determine what undergraduate students actually do to protect themselves fromfoodborne disease, as well as use cluster analysis to determine whether undergraduate studentscan be divided into students that are motivated to improve their food safety behaviours andstudents who need motivation to improve their food safety behaviours in order to tailorinterventions, such as messaging, based on the motivational needs of the students.