Behavioral interventions of street food vendors for strengthening street food safety in Dhaka city, Bangladesh

Project Brief: The objective of the study was to introduce an intervention package among a group of selected street food vendors in Dhaka city and promote overall safe street food handling practice among the street food vendors. The intervention includes education about WHO’s five keys to safer food for increasing street food safety knowledge, providing a low cost narrow mouth vessel and water purification tablet for promoting use of potable water in every step of vending, and providing soap for promoting hand washing practice among the street food vendors. The study recruited 200 street food vendors who sell ready to eat food from non fixed sites with 18 years and above age followed by a voluntary consent. Half of them were recruited for an intervention group and other for control. Baseline and end line surveys among case and control groups were conducted for obtaining data on demographic and socio-economic; current knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of street food vendors about street food safety; raw materials, utensils and other logistics used in street food preparations; source of raw materials and water used, storage and disposal of leftover food; socio economic dynamics involved in street food vending and incentives; difficulties involved with street food vending business etc. Qualitative assessment was done to assess knowledge, practice and attitude towards street food safety. Food and water samples and hand rinse were collected before and after intervention to assess the contamination level.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Aliya Naheed

Duration: November 2013- October 2014

Donor: Grand Challenges Canada (GCC)