Assessment of Food Hygiene and Safety Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice in Elementary School Students

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the elementary students' knowledge, attitudes, and practice for food hygiene and safety. A self-administered questionnaire was developed and offered to 375 elementary school students throughout the Seoul region. The results of the survey were as follows: First, the knowledge, attitudes, and practice were not at satisfactory level. The scores of children's knowledge, attitudes, and practice were 67.42%, 3.83, and 3.81 out of 5 point scale, respectively. Second, knowledge, attitudes and practice levels were significantly different according to demographic characteristics. The lower grade-students had significantly higher scores for knowledge (p<.05), attitudes (p<.05) and practice (p<.01) than higher gradestudents, suggesting that food hygiene and safety education is more effective in younger students or that repeated education is needed for higher grade-students. Third, knowledge, attitudes and practice levels were significantly correlated each other. These results suggest that the education programs for food hygiene and safety should be developed for, as well as implemented in, lower elementary school grades.