by Shafaq Naeem, Yaxuan Xie, Sadaf Naeem, Sumaira Mubarik, Zhanpeng Yuan and Kejian Shi
Original Research
Food-borne diseases, especially food poisoning, have become more common in recent decades, threatening the health and economic well-being of many people all over the globe. This research was intended to evaluate knowledge, attitude, and preventive practice of parents about food poisoning and the factors associated with it. By using a well-structured questionnaire, we conducted a cross-sectional study targeting mainly parents in the city of Lahore. A Chi-square test was performed to measure the effect of sociodemographic variables on these three attributes and binary logistic regression analysis to identify predictors of parents’ knowledge, attitude, and practice. Pearson correlation coefficient was also calculated. We observed good knowledge and attitude in 62.6% (241) and 60.8% (234) parents, respectively, but good preventive practice only in 42.1% (162) of parents. Regarding food poisoning knowledge, only age, education level and monthly income were significantly associated (p < 0.05) with it. On the other hand, all socio-demographic variables (age, gender, education level, number of children and monthly income) were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with both attitude and preventive practice. Besides, a significant positive correlation was observed between knowledge and attitude (r = 0.797, p = 0.001), knowledge and practice (r = 0.594, p = 0.002) and attitude and practice (r = 0.545, p < 0.001). The majority of the parents demonstrated good knowledge and attitude but poor preventive practices towards food poisoning. Parents who had good knowledge also exhibited a positive attitude and practice. Thus, we can improve parents’ attitudes and practices by improving food poisoning knowledge. Therefore, this study provides a baseline for health authorities to emphasize increasing parental knowledge and strategies to change parents' attitudes toward food poisoning while also polishing their good practices.
Journal of Food Security. 2022, 10(3), 108-118. DOI: 10.12691/jfs-10-3-3
Pub. Date: December 14, 2022
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by Diarra Doukoro, Georges Abbevi Abbey, Traore Kalifa and Tounkara Sidi Yehia
Original Research
Climate variability and change pose a threat to global food security around the world. This climate change results in the occurrence of extreme events such as droughts, flooding, etc. It becomes more pronounced in Mali. However, most Malian households are vulnerable to coping with the effects of those events. This climatic disturbance affects all sectors in Mali such as agriculture, livestock, etc. Thus, those sectors are the main sources of food production for many households in the country. In fact, several factors contribute to food insecurity in many areas of Mali including drought, flooding, low agricultural yield, terrorist attacks, and power instability. Among the affected areas in Mali, included Koutiala and San districts. The main goal of this study is to assess the level of households' food security status in the Koutiala and San districts. The specific objectives are: (i) to assess the households' food security index in the study area; (ii) to determine the main factors that drive the households’ to food insecurity; and (iii) to identify the households coping strategies to face food insecurity. Therefore, a field survey was conducted with a sampling of 455 households’ from eight (8) villages (M’Pessoba, TarassoII, Sougoumba, N’Tosso, Tene, Sourountouna, Koro, and Dieli) within Koutiala and San districts. Therefore, CARI (Consolidated Approach to Reporting Food Security Indicators) approach was used for measuring the household’s food security status. SPSS software was used for data processing. It appears from the findings that in the food consumption score, most of the households have an acceptable (99.8%) score and only a poor (0.2%) score. In the households’ food expenditure share, 100% of them spend less than 50% on food. The results (Table 3) show that (97.8%) of households are marginally food secured, only (2%) of them are food secured, and (0.2%) are moderately food insecure. The cows’ ownership and work for cash were the main factors of households’ food security which have a positive influence on households’ food security. The main constraints faced by households' food security were the increase in agricultural inputs price (91%), the difficulty of food availability (89.5%), an increase in food price (88.1%), rainfall variability (84.2%), income reduction (79.1%), debt payback (52.5%), effects of natural disasters (drought, flood) (50.8%), and human insecurity (46.4%). The food insecurity coping strategies based on food consumption were to borrow food (36%), reduce the amount of food consumed by adults to feed children (31%), reduce the number of meals per day (28%), use less popular and expensive foods (23%), limited the size of portions during meals (22%), and going a whole day without eating (9%). Moreover, the food insecurity coping strategies are based on households’ livelihoods, such as emergency (64.4%), crisis (33.6%), stress (1.8%), and none strategy (0.2%).
Journal of Food Security. 2022, 10(3), 97-107. DOI: 10.12691/jfs-10-3-2
Pub. Date: November 10, 2022
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by N’Goran Parfait N’Zi, Hadja Djénéba Ouattara, Yao Paul Attien, Valérie Carole Gbonon, Nathalie Kouadio Guessennd and Djédoux Maxime Angaman
Original Research
Ready-to-eat salads have become highly demanded foods in the city of Abidjan (Côte d’ivoire) because of their considerable benefits both nutritionally and therapeutically. However, these foods are considered products that are very vulnerable to microbial contamination. In order to contribute to food safety in Côte d'Ivoire, in particular among the Abidjan population, we have set the objective of inventorying psychrophilic pathogenic species in ready-to-eat salads sold in supermarkets. Thus, a total of 60 samples were analyzed using the techniques of classical microbiology, molecular biology, bioinformatics and statistics. For the search for psychrophilic pathogens, the selective culture medium (Oxford agar) of the pathogens frequently isolated (L. monocytogenes) was used. Microbiological analyzes revealed the presence of similar germs in 6 samples based on growth characters with Oxford’s selective medium. However, molecular sequencing allowed to identify six (6) different pathogens, Lysinibacillus fusiformis in spinach salads (EP), Listeria monocytogenes in mixed salads (SCOM), Staphylococcus saprophyticus in lamb's lettuce and arugula, Staphylococcus fleurettii in carrots (SCA), Staphylococcus nepalensis in young shoots (JP) and Bacillus cereus in cabbage (SCH). The growth kinetics showed the characterized species grow significantly in the different lettuces under domestic storage conditions after opening the packaging except for S. fleurettii. However, the growth of L. fusiformis and B. cereus was found to be more significant. In conclusion, S. saprophyticus, S. nepalensis, B. cereus, L. fusiformis and B. cereus grow easily on oxford agar presenting similar culture characters like L. monocytogenes. In addition, the presence of unknown pathogenic species in ready-to-eat salads and their significant growth during the domestic storage period is a real public health problem. It would therefore be wise for the health authorities to set up a monitoring program for these species in the ready-to-eat sold in supermarkets in Côte d'Ivoire.
Journal of Food Security. 2022, 10(3), 89-96. DOI: 10.12691/jfs-10-3-1
Pub. Date: October 13, 2022
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