NEHA May 2024 Journal of Environmental Health

ADVANCEMENT OF THE PRACTICE

FIGURE 3

Regularity of Assessing Contamination Sources and Probity at a Food Business

Sources of Cross-Contamination ( n = 210)

Environmental Sources of Contamination ( n = 212)

Sources of Contamination by Food Handlers ( n = 211)

Inherent Sources of Contamination ( n = 208)

Sources or Evidence of Food Adulteration ( n = 211)

90 100

% of Respondents

Never

Sometimes

Approximately One Half of the Time

Most of the Time Always

against respondent country, training, and experience. Again, significant variance was identified only among countries. Here, inher- ent contamination sources and adulteration presented significant variance. Inspectors in Australia reported that they were signifi- cantly less likely to regularly assess inher- ent food contamination sources than others, with 34% reporting that they only sometimes make this assessment. In contrast, inspectors in the UK (73%) reported that they were sig- nificantly more likely than others to always assess inherent sources. This pattern was present when examining for evidence of food adulteration, with 61% of Australian inspec- tors never doing so and 33% of UK inspec- tors always making this examination. Cross- tabulations and calculations are provided in Supplemental Table 6. Although an array of methods was reported for assessing contamination sources and pro- bity, observational techniques were the domi- nant class of methods applied in making these assessments. Respondents selected all appli- cable methods used to make assessments of contamination sources and probity and could also elaborate or specify alternative methods via an open-ended text field. The frequency of reported assessment methods is provided in

Table 4, and answers provided via the open- ended text field are presented in Table 5. Tables 4 and 5 show that inspectors employed dierent primary methods to assess sources of contamination and probity than those methods they used for assessing food preparation points and processes. Here, observational techniques and reviewing pro- cedures of food businesses were the domi- nant methods used by inspectors in their assessments. The pattern of data immediacy and the regularity of assessment as observed with food preparation points and processes is similar to the pattern seen in the assess- ment of contamination and probity. When taking into account Figure 4, Tables 4 and 5 show that when considering the most com- monly assessed source of contamination— cross-contamination—inspectors were more likely to include observational techniques in their assessment methods. In contrast, when assessing the least commonly assessed aspect—food adulteration—inspectors were more likely to include laboratory analysis in their assessment methods. Like the mea- surement of temperature, observational tech- niques provide inspectors with data that are immediately accessible and interpretable dur- ing the inspection. Whereas when identifying

food adulteration, inspectors must rely on indirect inferences and data not immediately available to them. Overall, the results show a pattern of imbal- anced emphasis by inspectors in the areas they assessed and the methods they used during food safety inspections. Although some imbalances might result from the influ- ence of country-specific policy and practices, the results indicate they are not attributable to all imbalances observed. These imbalances are likely to give rise to bias, particularly in terms of the accessibility of data and the direct comparability of data for compliance criteria. Furthermore, the imbalances appear to contribute to a) a lack of comprehensive- ness of data being gathered by inspectors to inform their determinations and b) a lack of coherence between evidence and claims. We examine these issues next. Discussion Food safety inspection is an example of applied particularistic qualitative field research (although it might include some empirical leaning elements), which involves formulat- ing a research goal, entering the field to gather data, interpreting the data, and presenting the findings and conclusions (Bailey, 2007;

Volume 86 • Number 9