Health Literacy, Food Safety Cognitive, Behavioral Correlation Analysis And Influencing Factors Among The Restaurant Workers In Qibao District Of Shanghai

Objective:This survey was designed to assess the health literacy level, the awareness of food safety knowledge, the situation of food safety behavior and explore the related factors that influenced health literacy level of the employees in Qibao catering units. Furthermore, we wanted to discover whether that health literacy influence food safety knowledge and behaviors, in order to provide evidence forfurther action on restaurant workers.Methods:The questionnaire survey was conducted among 477 restaurant workers by stratified cluster sampling in Qibao district of Shanghai. The contexts concluded health literacy, food safety knowledge and behavior survey. We used Epidata3.1 to establish a database, percentage method and comprehensive method score was chose to describe health literacy level and food safety knowledge and behavior level. We also used the chi-square test to analysis health literacy level under different demographic characteristics, and logistic stepwise regression was used to filter the main factors affecting health literacy. Independent-Samples T Test, Spearman correlation analysis and distance (similarity) analysis was chose to reveal the relationship between health literacy, food safety knowledge and practitioner behavior. Spearman correlation analysis was used to explore the influence of health literacy on other food safety knowledge and behavior influence factors.Results:(1) The prevalence of health literacy among restaurant workers in Qibao district was 22.9%. The three aspects of health literacy including the basic knowledge level, the health lifestyle level and basic health skills level was 25.4%,30.8%,70.6%, respectively. The five types of health problem literacy including the scientific views of health literacy, infectious diseases prevention literacy, chronic disease prevention literacy, safety & first aid literacy, as well as basic medical literacy was 78.4%,41.9%, 30.2%,65.6% and 22.2%, respectively.(2) Multivariate logistic regression showed:job and length of service in catering were very important factors. Job affected overall health literacy, the three aspects of health literacy and infectious diseases literacy; length of service in catering affected the three aspects of health literacy, infectious diseases literacy and chronic diseases literacy; health literacy was also affected by unit category、household register、age、 gender、marital status、food safety level and income. Unit category affected healthy lifestyle and behavior literacy, basic health skills literacy and safety & first aid literacy; household register affected overall health literacy, basic knowledge and concepts of health literacy and scientific views of health literacy; marital status affected scientific views of health literacy and chronic diseases literacy; income affected healthy lifestyle and behavior literacy and infectious diseases literacy; food safety level affected healthy lifestyle and behavior literacy and basic medical care literacy; age affected overall health literacy; gender affected safety & first aid literacy.(3) The prevalence of food safety knowledge level testing qualifier was 65.6%, and the average score was 10.93 ± 2.217. The prevalence of daily practitioners’ actors with norms was 87.6% -97.3%.(4) Health literacy level had a close relationship with mastery level of food safety knowledge, daily good behavior and training experience, attitudes of food safety knowledge and self-assessment of mastery level and other factors.Conclusion:(1) The overall health literacy level of restaurant workers in Qibao district was good, but the various aspects of health literacy and five types of health problem literacy level was not balanced. Basic knowledge and concepts of health literacy, chronic disease prevention and basic medical care literacy had a relatively low proportion.(2) Multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis showed:age, gender, household register, marital status, income level, job, unit category, food safety level, length of service in catering etc. affected health literacy, especially the factors of job and length of service. This indicated that the auxiliary operators in catering and those who having the shorter length of service should be concerned.(3) The survey reflected food safety knowledge and behavior was good. The level of health literacy was closely related to the level of food safety knowledge and whether the behavior is correct or not.(4) Food safety regulations should be strengthened to prevent food poisoning and health literacy of restaurant workers should be increased.