Developing a Culturally Appropriate, Spanish-Language Low-Literacy/Non-Technical Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) Training Curriculum

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Many food processors face the challenge of properly training a large percentage of their employees who might not speak English or who are limited English-speaking, who are low literacy, who may be recent immigrants with distinctive cultural attitudes toward food safety, and/or who have little to no inherent knowledge about safe food handling practices. As the cultural balance within the United States continues to shift, the need for multi-lingual culturally sensitive food safety training must be effectively addressed. More specifically, training for the large population of Spanish-speaking employees working in the meat and poultry industry is essential. To accomplish this, the project team will: 1. Assess the food safety training needs of Spanish-speaking workers in meat and poultry processing facilities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. 2. Develop two basic high quality GMP modules and separate GMP modules for Ready-to-Eat (RTE), Sanitation and Maintenance that can be delivered or completed within two hours, are low-literacy/non-technical, and can be customized for use by meat and poultry facilities. 3. Develop a two-hour cultural training curriculum for non Spanish-speaking supervisors and Human Resource workers in an effort to deepen the understanding of specific cultural issues and attitudes covered in the two basic modules. 4. Develop a train-the trainer program for native Spanish-speaking university and industry personnel on appropriate concepts and delivery of the GMP modules. 5. Evaluate the effectiveness of the curricula at increasing knowledge about GMP's and increasing the application of GMPs. 6. Evaluate the effectiveness of the cultural training curriculum to improve the understanding by non-Spanish-speakers of specific cultural issues and attitudes covered in the curricula. With the use of this curriculum adoption of GMPs and the resulting increase in food safety could significantly increase with this audience because (1) concepts and principles will be developed and conveyed in a language and a manner that it is clearly understood by the training participant; (2) barriers to adoption and ways to overcome barriers will be identified in the focus group sessions and integrated into the training curriculum; and (3) the material will be delivered by an individual of similar ethnic background in Spanish.<P>

APPROACH: Initially, semi-structured exploratory interviews of 10 English-speaking supervisors and 10 Spanish-speaking individuals within the meat and poultry industry in each state will be conducted to identify appropriate topics for focus group interviews. The information gathered from the exploratory interviews will be used to develop the focus group protocol. Other participation criteria, such as educational level, ethnic background and age, will also be established and used to recruit participants. Before focus group interviews begin, the protocol will be piloted and revised as necessary. A total of nine focus group interviews (three in each state) of 8-10 individuals in meat and poultry facilities in NC, Va. and SC will be conducted. Each focus group session will take approximately 90 minutes. A Spanish-speaking facilitator from the project team will be trained on the focus group method, will lead all sessions and the data will be transcribed, translated grouped and summarized. Focus group interviews will be used create to collect more in-depth information about a GMP training needs and assist in the development of the training curriculum. It is envisioned that the developed training tools will include a training guide, a PowerPoint slide set, supplemental handouts, and a valid and reliable evaluation instrument to measure change in knowledge and application of GMPs. Each step of curriculum development will include a formative evaluation with Spanish-speaking workers, as well as guidance from the cultural advisors on the project team. The development and revision process will be ongoing, as needed, throughout the entire project. Delivery of the material will be done in-house at the volunteer facilities by one of the project teams Hispanic food safety experts with the assistance of a Spanish-speaking graduate student. Effect will be measured by the administration of a valid, reliable knowledge test at the end of each program, again after three months, supervisor interviews and by analyzing video surveillance of staging areas for behavioral improvement before, after and three months after the curriculum.. The evaluation component of this project will be continuous and will yield data in multiple forms: process and product, formative and summative, qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative methods will be used because traditional quantitative techniques simply do not supply the richness of information needed. Quantitative data collection methods will be used to gather demographic information about participants and to assess knowledge change after attendance at a training program. Data sources will include Spanish-speaking workers from selected facilities, local site coordinators, and the administrator team partners. All evaluation tools to be administered to participants will be reviewed by experts for accuracy, appropriateness, cultural sensitivity, and will be piloted with a sample of the target. The knowledge instrument will be pilot tested and an item analysis will be performed for all questions to assure that the items are reliable. All evaluations of participants will be conducted under conditions of informed consent.