DETERMINANTS OF WOMEN’S FOOD SAFETY AND HYGIENE PRACTICE AT THEIR HOUSEHOLDS

Abstract

The major purpose of the study was to determine the extent of food safety and hygiene practices by women at their households. Attempts were also made to describe the selected characteristics of the women and to find out the contributing factors that affect women’s food safety and hygiene practices at their households. The study was undertaken purposively in Kushtia Sadar upazila under Kushtia district. Validated and well-structured interview schedule was used to collect data from 133 women during the period from 13 March to 14 April, 2021. Descriptive statistics, multiple regressions were used for analysis. The most 62.41 percent of the respondents had medium practice compared to 15.03 percent of the respondents had low practice and 22.56 percent of the respondents had high practice. Among 11 selected characteristics of the women’s four characteristics namely, decision making ability, media contact, food safety and hygiene knowledge and attitude towards food safety and hygiene of the respondents had significant positive contribution to their food safety and hygiene practices. The rest seven characteristics namely, age, education qualification , family members, annual family income, monthly hygiene purpose expenditure, training on food safety and hygiene and organizational participation had no significant contribution to their food safety and hygiene practices.