Central African Journal of Public Health 2016; 2(2): 43-50 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/cajph doi: 10.11648/j.cajph.20160202.11 Hygiene Practices Among Food Vendors in Hohoe Township George Edward Ntow * , Mavis Pearl Kwabla, Joyce Der Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, Ghana Email address: edward.george08@gmail.com (G. E. Ntow) * Corresponding author To cite this article: George Edward Ntow, Mavis Pearl Kwabla, Joyce Der. Hygiene Practices Among Food Vendors in Hohoe Township. Central African Journal of Public Health. Vol. 2, No. 2, 2016, pp. 43-50. doi: 10.11648/j.cajph.20160202.11 Received: September 2, 2016; Accepted: September 23, 2016; Published: October 17, 2016 Abstract: Background: Street food vending has become a very lucrative business across all parts of the globe. However, little attention has been given to the safety of such foods thus, becoming a great challenge to public health. This study was conducted to examine the hygiene practices observe by food vendors at sites where food is prepared and sold in the Hohoe Township. Method: This was a cross-sectional study which employed simple random sampling technique to select 187 respondents over the period of July to December, 2015. Chi square test was used to test for association between some selected variables at a significant level of 0.05. Data was entered into epi data version 3.1 and exported to Stata version 11 for analysis. Result: Of the 187 respondents, majority of 181(96.79%) were female with 113(60.43%) attaining the basic school education. About 35(18.7%) used their bare hands in picking food for customers with 149(78.92%) been medically screened. A little more than half (55.08%) did not cover their hair when selling and only 72(38.50%) wore apron during sales of food. One hundred and sixty (86.89%) sold food very close to open gutters but only 29(27.36%) paid attention to the cleanliness of such gutters. An association existed between level of education and knowledge on hygiene practices among respondents but was not significant [Chi square=1.3024, p value=0.729]. Also, an association existed between type of food vendor and knowledge on hygiene but not significant [Chi square=2.8331, p value=0.418]. Conclusion: Most food vendors in Hohoe have some fundamental knowledge on hygiene but this does not reflect in their routine practices. Periodic training and education of food vendors on hygiene and its standards can help ameliorate their practice on food hygiene. Keywords: Food Vendor, Hygiene Practices, Food Safety, Food and Water Hygiene, Food Borne Infections 1. Introduction Street food vending has become an integral part of all societies in the underdeveloped, developing and developed countries. As such, the standard of hygiene maintained is a very vital matter [1]. Nevertheless, the activities indulged by some group of food vendors during handling of food cannot be compromised. Cholera has been a public health burden in Ghana since the 1970s [2, 3] and it still continued to exist due to poor sanitation and the unhygienic state of the food and water that we ingest [4]. It was estimated that 70% of disease outbreaks is associated with street vending foods [5-7]. Activities of food vendors such as the habit of not washing hands and improper handling of money with food cannot be overemphasized as they have been implicated in food borne illnesses [8]. Food borne infections are associated with some risk factors such as the ingestion of food and water contaminated by strands of micro-organisms, poor environmental sanitation and hygiene, and improper handling of food by food vendors. These risk factors might not be excruciating when intensive food and water hygiene practices are observed. An article reviewing the role of food workers in a food borne outbreak ascertain that certain pathogens can originate from infected food workers, raw foods or surrounding environment and these can spread during the food preparation session to the infected workers themselves or other susceptible consumers [8]. A study conducted on the microbial quality of foods sold on streets of Accra has revealed that street food is a source of enteropathogens [9]. There are so many activities carried out by food vendors which do not meet the required standard of food hygiene [10- 12]. Some food vendors typically use the same water over and over throughout the day without changing it even once, thereby permitting substantial amounts of dissolved organic matter and in some cases fecal contamination to provide an ideal culture medium for bacteria [11].