ment; Table 2). There was no significant asso- ciation between missing food safety training and poor personal hygiene ( p = .06) or inad- equate cooking ( p = .05).
TABLE 2
Relationship Between Missing Food Safety Training and Deficiencies at Fort Liberty Associated With Foodborne Illness Risk Factor Categories, 2021
Food Safety Training and Risk Factors by Facility Type
Figure 1 shows di erences between food safety training status and CDC foodborne illness risk factors at the five di erent facil- ity types. Five deficiency categories—miss- ing food safety training, food from unsafe sources, inadequate cooking, improper holding temperatures, and contaminated equipment—were significantly correlated with each other (all p < .001). Poor personal hygiene was significantly correlated with missing food safety training across all facility types ( p = .005). There was a significant dif- ference ( p < .001) among military cafeterias and elementary and middle school facilities compared with the other three facility types in all deficiency categories. Figure 2 shows the variance in the means of di erences between missing food safety training, CDC foodborne illness risk factors, and facility types. Five deficiency categories showed significant di erences between facil- ity types: missing food safety training ( F = 8.06, p < .001); food from unsafe sources ( F = 13.14, p < .001); inadequate cooking ( F = 11.25, p < .001); improper holding tem- peratures ( F = 10.60, p < .001); and con- taminated equipment ( F = 7.18, p < .001). Poor personal hygiene showed no significant di erence between facility types ( F = 0.84, p = .50). Compared with other types of facili- ties, military cafeterias showed significantly higher ( p < .05) deficiencies in the five food safety risk categories. Figure 3 shows the means of total deficien- cies by facility type in each category. Fast food and retail facilities had the most deficiencies among all categories: missing food safety training ( n = 924), poor personal hygiene ( n = 23), food from unsafe sources ( n = 308), inadequate cooking ( n = 154), improper hot/ cold holding temperature ( n = 114), and contaminated equipment ( n = 371). Military cafeterias showed the second highest number of deficiencies in four categories: food from unsafe sources ( n = 165), inadequate cooking ( n = 74), improper holding temperature ( n = 68), and contaminated equipment ( n = 158). Childcare facilities ranked second highest in
Foodborne Illness Risk Factor
Missing Food Safety Training Yes ( n = 101) No ( n = 23) # % #
%
Poor personal hygiene Deficiencies
28 73
27.7 72.3
2
8.7
No deficiencies
21
91.3
Food from unsafe sources* Deficiencies
91 10
90.1
13 10
56.5 43.5
No deficiencies
9.9
Inadequate cooking* Deficiencies
72 29
71.3 28.7
11 12
47.8 52.2
No deficiencies
Improper holding temperature* Deficiencies
69 32
68.3 31.7
4
17.4 82.6
No deficiencies
19
Contaminated equipment* Deficiencies
84 17
83.2 16.8
7
30.4 69.6
No deficiencies
16
* Fisher’s exact test shows significant differences in food safety training status between facilities with deficiencies and facilities with no deficiencies for each factor at p < .05.
di erences between missing food safety train- ing, the five CDC foodborne illness risk fac- tors, and the five facility types. One-way anal- ysis of variance (ANOVA, p < .001) was used to compare the means of di erences between food safety training, risk factor deficiency cat- egories, and facility types. The frequency of deficiencies by each facil- ity type in each category was also analyzed. An independent samples t -test ( p < .05) was used to compare the total number of facili- ties with and without su cient food safety training and with or without deficiencies in CDC foodborne illness risk factors for each category (data coded dichotomously where 1 = yes and 0 = no). This process allowed for the comparison of facilities with insu cient/ su cient food safety training versus facili- ties that did or did not show deficiencies in at least one of the five CDC foodborne illness risk factors. We calculated the total number of deficiencies related to the five foodborne
illness risk factors and used IBM SPSS (ver- sion 28.0.1.1) for our data analysis.
Results
Food Safety Training and Risk Factors Our study examined 716 inspection reports from 124 food service units and facilities col- lected in 2021 at Fort Liberty. All CDC food- borne illness risk factor categories (i.e., p < .001: food from unsafe sources, inadequate cooking, improper hot/cold holding tempera- tures, contaminated equipment; p = .02: poor personal hygiene) were significantly corre- lated with missing food safety training (Table 1). Fisher’s exact test showed significant asso- ciation ( p < .05) in food safety training status between facilities with deficiencies compared with no deficiencies for three of the five CDC foodborne illness risk factor categories (i.e., food from unsafe sources, improper hot/cold holding temperature, contaminated equip-
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January/February 2025 • Journal of Environmental Health
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