Hand hygiene practices during meal preparation – a ranking among ten European countries

The study mapped hand hygiene practices across 10 European countries and found significant variation with Denmark demonstrating the highest adherence and Spain the lowest.
Author(s): Mihalache, Octavian; Teixeira, Paula; Langsrud, Solveig; Nicolau, Anca
Published: 2023
Language: English
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Additional Information

The aim of this paper was to map consumers’ food hygiene practices from 10 European countries and evaluate which demographic groups are more likely to be exposed to foodborne pathogens and establish a ranking of adherence to food hygiene practices in 10 European countries. Methods: The research design consisted of a cross-national quantitative consumer survey regarding food safety and hygiene practices during meal preparation (SafeConsume project) and was conducted in ten European countries (France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain and UK). The survey questions were based on recommended hand hygiene practices and on observed practices from a field study performed in 90 European households from six of the countries covered by the survey (France, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Romania, and UK). SPSS Statistics 26 (IBM Software Group, Chicago, IL) was used for the descriptive and regression analyses of the data. Regression analyses were used to check the relation between demographic characteristics, country of origin and self-reported hand hygiene practices.