Food Protection Trends - July/August 2020 - 247

FIGURE 3. Practices of respondents on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

the respondents (172; 96.6%) reported habitual use of personal garments during work or slaughterhouse operations.
Some of these respondents reported occasionally washing
these personal working clothes.

marital status, education, job type, years of experience on
the job and slaughterhouse location - had no significant
association with satisfactory knowledge scores on the test of
food safety risk at the slaughterhouse.

Meat inspection and zoonoses
About 69% and 3% of respondents reported that veterinarians perform an inspection after slaughter and before
slaughter, respectively. A few respondents (51; 28.7%)
reported being aware of veterinarians carrying out animal
and meat inspection both before and after slaughter. The
majority (> 70%) are aware that slaughterhouse workers
can get diseases from animals, from the slaughterhouse environment and from meat. Most respondents (112; 62.9%)
do not rest animals for at least 24 hours prior to slaughter,
while over half (93; 52.2%) slaughter and process sick animals in the slaughterhouse despite being aware of the risk of
zoonoses (Table 3).

Factors associated with satisfactory knowledge about
food safety risk in the slaughterhouse in relation to work
injuries
Significant associations exist between gender and PPE
usage and respondents' knowledge levels of food safety risk
in relation to work injuries in the slaughterhouse. Furthermore, female slaughterhouse workers were only one third
as likely as male workers (OR = 0.3; 95% CI: 0.1 - 0.8;
P = 0.026) to have a satisfactory knowledge level of food
safety risk in the slaughterhouse in relation to work injuries.
Slaughterhouse workers reporting usage of PPE while working in the slaughterhouses were more likely than non-PPE
users (OR = 9.0; 95% CI: 3.5 - 22.9; P < 0.001) to have
satisfactory knowledge of food safety risk in the slaughterhouse in relation to work injuries.

Association between demographic factors and
knowledge about food safety risk in the slaughterhouse
in relation to work injuries
The majority of respondents (82.2%) had unsatisfactory knowledge levels. However, more male respondents
(20/112) than female respondents (6/91) had satisfactory
knowledge levels (P = 0.017) (Table 1). The level of satisfactory knowledge in relation to the age of respondents was
not significant (P = 0.543); only 5.4% of slaughterhouses'
workers age 31-40 years had satisfactory knowledge of
food safety risk, for example. Other demographic factors -

DISCUSSION
The majority of the respondents were male and reported
having had injuries due to their work in the slaughterhouse,
with such injuries commonly occurring more than once in
the same person and mostly to the feet, lower back, knee,
and face. Apart from animals as the cause of injuries, the
hand equipment was reported by the majority of slaughterhouse workers as the source of injury experienced during
work. Only (32.6%) respondents reported regular use of

July/August Food Protection Trends

247
Food Protection Trends - July/August 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - July/August 2020
