| This study intended to examine whether and to what degree it would be efficacious to enlist the children of Eastern European restaurant workers in teaching their parents the foodhandler's program curriculum. This study used a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. Thirty-two volunteers were recruited from Eastern European restaurant workers who were seeking a foodhandler's permit at the Salt Lake Valley Health Department (SLVHD).; The sample consisted of a study group (n =15) and a control group (n = 17). Before the intervention, both groups completed pretests to measure their food safety handling knowledge in four separate areas—personal hygiene and handwashing, cooking and holding time, cooking and holding temperature, and cross-contamination.; The intervention for the experimental group consisted of instructing the children of the subjects in food safety handling in English, and consequently having the children instruct their parents using their native language. The control group participants received training from the SLVHD instructor in English. The original test was readministered following training and compared to pretest results for each group.; On the pretest, both groups scored 50% or less in each of the four areas of foodhandling competency. When pretest results for the study and control groups were compared using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U analysis, no significant differences between the two groups appeared. When the differences in scores from pretest to posttest for both groups were compared using the Wilcoxon test, there were significant differences in the knowledge of foodhandling competency except in the area of cooling and cold holding temperature.; Therefore, experimental subjects trained by their children demonstrated significant improvement in their overall understanding of food safety handling when compared to workers trained by the SLVHD instructor. Knowledge of foodhandling safety can be improved when the teaching method is modified to better suit the target population. This increased safety knowledge helped subjects receive a higher score on the foodhandler exam. It is suggested that children of immigrants can be used as a means of communication to their parents in control and prevention of foodborne diseases. Further investigation to understand the theory behind this is suggested. |
