Purpose: Our purpose was to evaluate relationships between repeated multi-year hand-hygiene training delivered to Florida fresh citrus packers, as part of a larger Citrus Packinghouse Worker Training Program, and their self-reported hand-hygiene attitudes, awareness and practices away from the workplace that may contribute to overall worker health and health behaviors within the community.
Methods: A 45-min, interactive, personal hygiene module, based on Cornell GAP and GlobalGAP curricula, has been offered annually since 2008, resulting in implemented, supported and reinforced hand-hygiene programs. To evaluate the impact of multi-year trainings on self-reported hand-hygiene away from the workplace, a quantitative survey was designed and administered to volunteer English-speaking participants from five packinghouses (n = 74). A separate variable was created for questions relating to three domains (attitudes; awareness, and self-reported practices), giving three composite scores. Overall hand-hygiene score (OHHS) was created by summing responses to 27 weighted questions from composite scores. Frequencies, means, and standard deviations were calculated. Relationships between the domains were assessed with a two-tailed Pearson’s correlation; P ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Among packers with >2 trainings, there are significant relationships between the domains. All domains co-vary together, with the strongest relationship (r=0.432; P < 0.01) occurring between awareness and self-reported practices. No notable differences in mean responses between genders were seen in the overall scores for each subcategory; participants OHSS were 92.3%, very high given the potential range of scores.
Significance: Florida fresh citrus packers receiving multi-year hand-hygiene trainings in the workplace have high awareness and self-reported practices regarding hand-hygiene in non-work environments.