Environmental Hygiene and Health Status of Traders
CHAPTER ONE
Research Objectives
The main objective of this study was to assess environmental hygiene and health status of traders in Akpan Andem market.
Specific Objectives
- The specific objectives of this study ware
- To assess food stuff safety and hygienic knowledge of traders.
- To determine the attitude of traders towards food stuff safety and hygiene.
- To identify health status of traders.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Concept of Environmental Sustainability.
The word ‘sustain’ comes from the Latin word sustenare meaning “to hold up” i.e. to support; it evolved long ago to mean to keep something going or extend its duration, for commonest non-specialised use of the word the closest synonym is ‘maintain’ (Phillip, 2004).
This paper defines environmental sustainability:as a condition of balance, resilience, and interconnectedness that allows human society to satisfy its needs while neither exceeding the capacity of its supporting ecosystems to continue to regenerate the services necessary to meet those needs; nor by our actions diminishing biological diversity.More specifically, Environmental Sustainability is defined as meeting the resource and services needs of current and future generations without compromising the health of the ecosystems that provide them (Greenwoodet al., 2010),
Environmental sustainability seeks to sustain global life support system indefinitely (This refers principally to those systems maintaining human life).Source capacity of the global ecosystem provides raw material inputs – Food, water, air, sink capacities and waste assimilation, these source and sink capacity are large but finite. Sustainability requires that they be maintained rather than run down(John 2011). For example, accumulation of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), damages the capacity of the atmosphere to protect humans and other biota from harmful UV radiation. Protecting human life is the main reason human seeks environmental sustainability.
The Concept and Classification of Waste
Waste management is one of the important services provided by most urban authorities. Wastes need to be characterized by sources, generation rates, types of wastes produced, and composition in order to monitor and control prevailing waste management systems while improving the existing system.
Waste can be any substancebe it solid, liquid or gaseous, that remains a residue or an incidental by-product of a substance for which no use can be found by the organism or system that produces it (Allaby, 2008).Wastes may be categorized into gaseous, solid and liquid waste.
Davies (2008) notes that ‘what people consider being a waste material or substances are considered a source of value by others’. According to Ibrahim (2002) wastes are categorized based on the composition. These are: Biodegradable (These are waste that are capable of changing to harmless natural state by action of bacteria) mainly composed of garbage; Non-biodegradable waste comprises of scraps of metals and plastics.
CHAPTER THREE
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Description of the Study Area
Uyo is the capital city of Akwa Ibom state, located in southern Nigeria, bordering with Cross river to the right and Rivers to the left.
The work pricesly focuses on Akpan Andem market.
Population of the Study
The study population consisted of traders whose businesses are in Akpan Andem. The traders also constituted the study unit of this study.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
Demographic Information
Table 4.1: Demographic Characteristics of traders n = 385
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
CONCLUSION
This study aimed at carrying out an assessment environmental hygiene and health status of traders in Akpandem market. The results of this study show that trading is one of the most popular businesses in urban settings which employ a substantial fraction of the population of the urban dwellers. Similarly, the majority of traders had primary school education and only a small number of them had tertiary education, which implies their marginalization in the formal sector. This is further justified by the fact that the majority of them had no any formal training on food stuff safety and hygiene, which is an important requirement for safe guarding consumers.
The findings of this study indicated that the majority of traders (96.4%) were aware that poor or lack of hand washing could lead to food Hygiene and also the engagement of sick people in food stuff handling, which implies traders are only partially and not completing ignorant of the very basic food stuff hygienic practices. This could also be attributed to the findings that they had formal training in food stuff safety and hygiene. However, over half did not know that eating undercooked food stuff can cause same problem. Also, traders were not aware of cross-contamination, improper cooking and lack of cleaning and sanitization of equipment‟s in triggering food Hygiene.
The results also indicate that the majority of traders could identify only 5 sources of food stuff contamination (dirty equipment, foreign matter, food stuff handler, poor storage / uncovering and contaminated water) and could not identify the other 6 sources of contamination (poorly cooked food stuff, stale food stuff, food stuff ingredients, raw food stuff, dish towel and cooking well in advance) except the few minority. The other traders were completely ignorant of any source of food stuff contamination.
Regarding vendors‟ attitude to good safety practices, the responses strongly agree indicates that most often of the responses and for agree indicate the majority of the responses. The summative responses for both strongly agree and agree ranged to the great majority, which implies a positive altitude of market vendors towards food stuff safety. Despite the vendors positive altitude on those parameters including hand washing, it was physically observed that more than half of the respondents did not have hand washing facilities and also only few had access to portable water. It was further observed that about less than half of the vendors did not wash their hands after toilet visit.
Recommendations
Based on the findings of this study the following are the recommendations for improving the knowledge, altitude and practices of trader
The Government through Ministry of Health Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children and Ministry of Local Government develop a code of practice for market trading.
Make food stuff safety training mandatory to traders.
Health officers be proactive in enforcing the existing laws and policies to ensure safe and clean working environments.
Municipal councils should provide guidance and standards for the vending sites.
Health education and promotion which focuses personal hygiene and food stuff safety to traders and consumers can be organized quarterly by the Municipal Council in collaboration with other health partners.
The Municipal Council introduces competition on food stuff safety and hygiene to traders by zone and award winners twice a year.
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