Raw Meat and Poultry-Specific Knowledge Gaps among

1
Raw Meat and Poultry-Specific Knowledge Gaps
among Meat and Poultry Chicago Restaurant Food
Handlers Patpong Udompat, MS, Li Liu, PhD, Mark
S. Dworkin, MD MPHTM University of Illinois at
Chicago School of Public Health, Chicago, IL
Results
Background
Discussion
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• Even though we limited the subanalysis to meat
  and poultry handlers responses to meat and
  poultry-specific questions (and 66 of them
  surveyed were certified), the mean knowledge
  score (72) was not substantially higher than the
  mean score using a more general food safety
  knowledge survey (72).
• There were also important knowledge gaps related
  to knowledge of proper storage of raw meat,
  appropriate defrosting of beef and poultry, and
  of cross contamination.
• More than 1/3 of these food handlers did not know
  about the severity of illness that may result
  from eating incompletely cooked beef. This raises
  the concern that they may not appreciate the
  rationale for the recommendations for checking
  temperatures in a menu item such as meatloaf.
• We recommend that local health departments should
  focus on educating meat and poultry handlers
  because almost 50 of food handlers and almost
  35 of certified food handlers had a knowledge
  score below 70 .
• Food safety certification should require a higher
  level of knowledge to be considered certified or
  more frequent verification that knowledge is
  retained with an emphasis on knowledge of proper
  storage, cooking temperatures, severity of
  illness, and prevention of cross contamination.

Raw meat and poultry are potentially hazardous
commonly handled and cooked foods in restaurants.
In a knowledge survey of 508 restaurant food
handlers performed in Chicago restaurants in
2009, the overall mean knowledge score was only
72. However, this knowledge score may be
underestimated because the survey included some
questions that may not be relevant to each food
handlers specific duties. We analyzed knowledge
data concerning meat and poultry food handling
only among the subset of food handlers that work
with meat and poultry.
Figure 1 Percentage of Incorrect Responses to
Each Meat and Poultry-Specific Knowledge Question
Table 1 Food Handler and Restaurant
Characteristics (N 372)

Food Handler Characteristics Food Handler Characteristics N ()
Gender Male 271 (73)
  Female 101 (27)
Language English 183 (49)
  Spanish 163 (44)
Other 26 (7)
Race/Ethnicity White 83 (23)
  Hispanic/Latino 205 (55)
  Black 50 (13)
  Other 33 (9)
Education Lower high school 78 (21)
  High school 106 (28)
  Higher high school 188 (51)
Certification
Yes and a manager 150(40)
  Certified, not manager 95 (26)
  Not certified, not manager 127 (34)
Restaurant Characteristics of the Food Handlers Restaurant Characteristics of the Food Handlers
Size Small 135 (36)
  Medium 97 (26)
  Large 140 (38)
Service Style Fast Food 111 (30)
  Informal 161 (43)
  Formal 100 (27)
Type of Cuisine American 220 (59)
  Mexican 52 (14)
  Italian 53 (14)
Other 47 (13)
Average Entrée Price lt10 215 (58)
  10-20 100 (27)
  gt20 57 (15)
Raw meat can be stored on foil-lined shelves to
prevent dripping onto other foods (False)
Raw meat can be stored anywhere in a refrigerator
as long as it is wrapped in plastic (False)
Eating ground meat that is not completely cooked
can cause bloody diarrhea (True)
Raw meat can be stored below ready to serve food
(True)
Beef may be placed in cold water to defrost (True)
It is safe to put frozen chicken breast on the
counter to thaw (False)
Beef may be placed on the counter to defrost
(False)
Objectives
Vegetables for a salad splashed with a few drops
of raw chicken juice should not be rinsed, but
instead must be thrown away (True)
The objective of this study was to determine if
the knowledge score of food handlers would be
much higher than previously recorded if the score
was based only on questions relevant to their
food handling duties.
Beef may be placed in the refrigerator to defrost
(True)
Uncooked beef is potentially contaminated with
germs that can cause people to be hospitalized or
die (True)
Raw meat can be stored above ready to serve food
(False)
Uncooked chicken is potentially contaminated with
germs that can cause people to become very ill
(True)
Methods
We analyzed data derived from a 41-question
survey of 508 food handlers from 125
participating restaurants in Chicago. Only the
372 meat and poultry handlers were included in
the analysis. The survey had true-false or
multiple-choice format (incorrect responses or
do not know were assigned to 0) and included
13 questions specific to meat or poultry handling
or cooking processes (Figure 1). Only these 13
meat and poultry-specific knowledge questions
were analyzed to determine the knowledge score.
For comparison, these 372 food handlers scored
72 overall on the general knowledge survey. The
percentage of incorrect responses among meat and
poultry handlers was compared and the frequency
distributions of meat and poultry specific
knowledge questions was determined.
Figure 2 Frequency Distribution of Meat and
Poultry-Specific Knowledge Questions among Meat
and Poultry Food handlers (N 372)
Figure 3 Frequency Distribution of Meat and
Poultry-Specific Knowledge Questions among
Certified Meat and Poultry Food Handlers (N 245)
Percent
50 of food handlers scored below 70
35 of certified food handlers scored below 70

Acknowledgements

• Overall mean score 72 (9.4 correct/13
  questions)
• Standard deviation 16
• Range 15-100

• Palak Panchal, MPH
• IDPH Division of Food, Drugs and Dairies and City
  of Chicago Health Department

• Overall mean score 77 (10 correct/13 questions)
• Standard deviation 13.8
• Range 38-100

Contact

• Mark Dworkin, MD MPHTM
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
• mdworkin_at_uic.edu
• Patpong Udompat, PhD student
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
• pudomp2_at_uic.edu
• Research Funded By
• Cooperative State Research, Education, And
  Extension
• Service (CSREES), US Department of
  Agriculture(Grant no. USDA 2008-01691)

Number of correct questions