Assessment of Food Safety Knowledge, Attitudes and its Quality in Student Canteens at Duhok University, 2015

Maintaining and improving the health level of college students are important aspects for higher education, where the food security becomes the foundation of the health. The aim of this study was to assess the level of knowledge and attitudes about food safety and to evaluate the quality of food (Physical & Operational Standards) in the student canteen at Duhok University.
To achieve this goal, three questionnaires were developed. Concerning food safety knowledge and attitude for food handles (buying, storage and serving food) data was collected using these self-questionnaires. The study was conducted on (319) respondents. The obtained data were analyzed and statistically tested.
The results have shown that neither age nor education levels have significant impact on the food safety knowledge. However, significant difference between male and female was found for the age >41. For food quality evaluation, the results have also shown that canteen workers lack the physical and operational standards of food safety especially taste and healthy ways of food prepared. The analysis has shown that the positive attitudes of canteen owner toward food handlers were 66.25% for buying, 31.2% for storage and 42.5% for serving food. The overall positive attitude was 46.65% which is insufficient range.
Overall respondents had poor food safety knowledge. There was a significant difference between the mean score of knowledge according to gender for group >41 years. In male only, the age has to impact on safety knowledge. While educational levels had no significant impact. The untrained employees who manage the university canteen made their attitudes toward storage and serving food unwelcome.