A Survey of the Environmental Health Status of Confectionery Workshops in Ilam (2016-2017)

Due to the high consumption of confectionary products in the community, their health status monitoring is important. These products are mostly exposed to microbial pollution leading to food poisoning due to consumption. Regular monitoring of the environmental health condition of the confectionary workshops in order to achieve the desired status has a major role in improving the health status of sweet products. The aim of this study was to survey the health status of the confectionery workshops in Ilam in 2016-2017.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 16 confectionery workshops were randomly selected in Ilam, Iran. To conduct this research, the checklist prepared by the Ministry of Health for assessing the environmental health status of workshops was used through direct observation, and The Excel software was used for analyzing the collected data.
The results showed that the measures of health desirability of confectionery workshops in the view of personal, food, equipment, and building health were 79.46, 92.41 75.36, and 81.98%, respectively. Moreover, environmental health indicators of workshops were 37.5, 50, and 12.5% and were in good, moderate, and  poor condition, respectively.
According to the results, continuous monitoring and control of health status as well as care for and paying attention to the provision of high quality raw materials and presence of a technical expert for each workshop can be effective in promoting health outcome of these workshops.