Clients' Safe Food-Handling Knowledge and Risk Behavior in a Home-Delivered Meal Program

Objective: To determine typical handling practices of home-delivered meals, and provide appropriate handling instructions to reduce the risk of foodborne illness by improving consumer handling of home-delivered meals. Design: Once permission was given by the home-delivered meal site directors, clients were provided a voluntary survey and requested by the delivery drivers to complete the self-administered questionnaire. The completed questionnaire was collected by the driver the following day. Because of the special needs of the home-delivered meal populations, the questionnaire was made as easy and convenient to answer as possible. Subjects: Two hundred fifty-eight male clients (31%) and 575 female clients (69%) whose mean age was 79 years participated in the study. Main outcome measures: The respondents' safe food-handling practices, food safety knowledge, and demographic information were assessed. Average time for delivery and consumption of meals were also measured. Statistical analysis: Descriptive statistics (frequency and χ² test) of the participants' handling of home-delivered meals, their general food safety knowledge, and demographic information were reported. Delivery time and consumption time were calculated for each subject. Results: Five hundred thirty-six of 869 clients (63%) reported that they ate their meals as soon as they were delivered. Of those clients who did not eat their meals immediately, 234 (82%) stored the cold food in the refrigerator and 142 (58%) stored the hot food in the freezer. More than one-third of the clients (n=277, 35%) reported that they had leftovers and only 34 (15%) ate the leftovers within 2 hours. Significant differences among groups on the basis of a derived food safety knowledge score were observed in terms of whether or not they ate their meal immediately (P≤0.05). Thirty clients did not report their time of consumption, and the remaining 839 clients consumed their meals an average of 1.22 hours after delivery. Conclusions: Time in conjunction with temperature can be used as a hazard control measure to reduce foodborne illness caused by improper food-handling procedures. Careful attention should be paid to the entire period of time from onsite preparation to offsite consumption. Therefore, the success of home-delivered meal programs among older Americans highly depends on multifactorial collaborations. Continued efforts from foodservice providers on safe handling of home-delivered meals are needed to help protect older Americans. At the same time, consumers need more information on handling meals in their homes and a better understanding of the importance of proper handling for prevention of foodborne illness.