Health education models and food hygiene education

Education of food industry personnel in hygiene matters has been recommended as a means of improving food handling practices and thus the safety of food. Provision has been made within the Food Safety Act 1990 for the making of regulations to specify the nature and extent of such training. There is, however, a lack of documentary evidence of improvements in food hygiene standards which can be directly related to education or training. Evaluations of formal food hygiene education courses have identified increased knowledge levels of course participants and improvements in the relationship between food industry and enforcement personnel. This paper considers the operation of food hygiene training in the context of health education theory. Interpretation of this suggests that further evaluation of training is warranted prior to programme development and that behavioural change might be more likely to occur if the settings approach to health promotion were to be adopted in food premises.