An official website of the United States government.
<OL> <LI> Develop and introduce to a selected number of food safety educators, regulators, and caregivers, online/worksite courses: a) "Food Safety First" which will provide basic food safety information, b) targeting child caregivers, and c) targeting elderly caregivers. Each course will contain student assessment of food safety learning. Materials will be developed in both English and Spanish and in multiple formats, including video segments, low literacy and large print. Courses will be developed with the aid of focus groups and community teams to build consensus. During the 3rd year we will open these courses to the public and advertise through the media to promote participation.<LI>Develop, implement and to evaluate a HACCP-based Food Safety Plan course for caregivers. Food handlers for child and elderly care facilities must have careful food handling techniques. Foodborne illness is preventable if food handling practices are applied from the time food is received to when the food is consumed. HACCP is a proactive, prevention-based method which works. <LI>Develop supplemental workshops that can deliver food safety training on site, where needed. Whereas the situation dictates, we will provide clients access to food safety training that can be provided on site, such as large institutional care facilities. <LI> To assess the effectiveness of our programs using pre and post testing and to monitor routine monitoring of care facilities by local and state regulatory agencies. </oL> Hypotheses or Research Questions: Children and the elderly are high risk populations vulnerable to the serious consequences of foodborne illnesses. Caregivers (professionals, volunteers, and family members) provide crucial interface between these high risk populations for all aspects of care including food service. Subsequently caregivers have a need to understanding safe food handling methods. <P>
Hypotheses: Trained caregivers will improve their understanding of food safety and subsequently foodborne illnesses will be reduced in Nevada facilities serviced by such trained caregivers. This project will focus on developing and providing a food safety education program for caregivers. We will adopt "Fight BAC!" and other original food safety resources, in our education modules via WEB CAMPUS, and on site workshop delivery systems. Time effective, comprehensive, interactive, culturally diverse, and self rewarding/motivating are characteristics that we will strive for in the development of our educational modules.
NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Nevada has been one of the fastest growing states in the US for the past two decades and such growth is associated with increases in population that faces relatively large food safety hazards (elderly, young children, those with immune compromised problems). In many situations, the caregiver for young and elderly are their first line of defense in preventing foodborne illnesses. Based on two major surveys conducted in Nevada, there is a strong need for us to be proactive for providing extensive food safety education to caregivers. This project proposes to develop an online food safety education program for child and elderly care givers reaching participants through their worksites. Participants will be able to access this fully narrated and animated curriculum whenever they choose, rather than at a specific time and location. Also, we will provide onsite food safety workshops for those caregiver facilities who desire such and for those caregivers who do not have easy access to the internet.
<P>
APPROACH: Project 1 - Develop and pilot online and on worksite food safety courses. To overcome slow Internet download time and slow modem speeds, the modules will use the software, Impatica for PowerPoint, which converts the PowerPoint file (with streaming video, photographs, graphics, and animations) into a compressed format that is optimized for streaming over the Internet. Food educational modules for child and adult/elderly caregivers will be based on the highly successful Fight BAC!TM campaign which has four messages: clean-wash hands and surfaces often; separate-don't cross-contaminate; cook-cook to proper temperatures; and chill- refrigerate promptly. Provide courses to the public. Once the courses have been piloted and evaluated (see Project 4 below), revised as appropriate, we will offer the course to the public client caregivers throughout Nevada. Our course offering will be promoted via Media releases, including; local media (television and newspaper), local and state health regulatory agencies, and local community organizations. Project 2 - Develop a HACCP-based Food Safety Plan course for caregivers. Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) template plans will be developed for child- and adult/elderly care givers. Project 3 - Develop supplemental workshops that can deliver food safety training onsite, where needed. Project 4 - Assessment of the effectiveness of our courses. We will use pre and post-testing evaluations tools (Lin and Slinde, 1977) to assess; 1) instructional methods, 2) training outcomes, 3) appropriateness of the training, and 4) participant's suggestions for future programming.