Foodborne pathogens awareness and food safety knowledge of street-vended food consumers: A case of university students in Ghana
Open accessAbstract
Food pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites are agents present in food or water that can cause foodborne illness. Some of these pathogens have been identified in Ghanaian foods and were responsible for the major foodborne disease outbreaks in Ghana. Thus, the current study assessed the awareness of foodborne pathogens and food safety knowledge of students in Ghana. The study employed non-probability techniques, as well as purposive and convenient techniques, to recruit institutions and students for the study. Out of 803 students, the majority (52.3%) were male, between the ages of 20 and 25 (52.8%), attended Ho Technical University (49.8%), and offered non-science-related courses (45.1%). The majority of the respondents were aware of foodborne pathogens, particularly Staphylococcus aureus (53.4%) and Salmonella typhimurium (53.5%). The mean overall score of foodborne pathogen awareness was 14.36 ± 4.57; the passing rate was 73.6%; tribe, institution, field of study, and level of study all had a significant (p < 0.05) effect on awareness of foodborne pathogens. The mean overall score of food safety knowledge was 12.43 ± 3.27; the passing rate was 77.3%; age, tribe, institution, field of study, and level of study all had a significant (p < 0.05) effect on food safety knowledge. Hence, food safety courses should be extended to all levels of education to increase awareness.
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Age was positively associated with food safety knowledge in studies conducted in Ghana, Vietnam, Nigeria, and Jordan.
“age was also positively associated with food safety knowledge in studies conducted in Ghana [50,60,70], Vietnam [62,68], Nigeria [64], and Jordan [49].”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
In the Results and discussion section (page unavailable), the Ghana study reports that age was significantly associated with food safety knowledge, but students under 20 had the highest passing rate and mean score. That finding does not support the claimed positive association with increasing age. This verdict concerns the Ghana study, not the separately cited studies in other countries. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredQuestionnaire-based surveys were the primary method in three studies.
“Questionnaire-based surveys were the primary method in three studies [60,67,68].”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
Seven studies focused on university students, two on school children, four on street food consumers, five on meat consumers, one on vegetable consumers, and one on milk consumers.
“Seven studies focused on university students [49,53,54,58,60,65,72], two studies were on school children [70,71], four studies on street food consumers [57,62,67,68], five studies on meat consumers [50,56,59,64,66], and one study each on vegetable [48] and milk consumers [61].”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
Among the 16 studies that described sampling methodology, five used simple random sampling, four convenience sampling, two multi-stage random sampling, two voluntary response sampling, two purposive sampling, and one both non-probability and snowball sampling.
“Among these, five studies were conducted with simple random sampling [48,49,54,69,70], four [47,58,59,60] with convenience sampling, two [61,64] with multi-stage random sampling, two [67,68] with voluntary response sampling, two [56,63] purposive sampling, and one [57] with both non-probability and snowball sampling techniques.”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
Several studies reported good or satisfactory knowledge levels.
“Several studies reported good or satisfactory knowledge levels [49,50,51,52,57,58,60,63,68], while other studies described knowledge as average or mixed [47,55,61,62,67,71].”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
Nine studies focused exclusively on food safety knowledge or awareness.
“Nine studies [48,50,56,57,59,60,61,62,65] focused exclusively on food safety knowledge or awareness, and one study [66] examined food safety practices alone.”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
While some studies reported good or satisfactory levels of knowledge, ten studies found low or poor levels and substantial knowledge or awareness gaps, while six studies showed average or mixed findings.
“While some studies (e.g., [49,51,60]) reported good or satisfactory levels of knowledge, ten studies (e.g., [53,65]) found low or poor levels and substantial knowledge or awareness gaps, while six studies [47,55,61,62,67,71] showed average or mixed findings.”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
Other studies found no significant gender-based differences in knowledge or attitude.
“while others found no significant gender-based differences in knowledge or attitude [51,57,58,60,62,67,68,70].”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
Age was significantly associated with at least one component of food safety knowledge, attitudes, and practices across diverse populations.
“Age was significantly associated with at least one component of food safety KAP across diverse populations (e.g., [47,49,50,60,68,70]).”
From Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices (KAP) of Urban Consumers in Low-Income and Lower-Middle-Income Countries (LLMICs): A Scoping Review (2026) · cites this paper as [60]
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- Authors
- Madilo, F. K., Islam, M. N., Letsyo, E., Roy, N., Klutse, C. M., Quansah, E., Darku, P. A., & Amin, M. B.
- Affiliations
- Ho Technical University (GH)
- Patuakhali Science and Technology University (BD)
- Corresponding author
- Madilo, Felix Kwashie
- Letsyo, Emmanuel
- Venue
- Heliyon
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2023-07
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- e17795
- ISSN
- 2405-8440 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10359811
- OpenAlex
- W4383092786
- Cited by
- 21
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 2
- FWCI
- 2.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Heliyon (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Food Safety and Hygiene
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Salmonella and Campylobacter epidemiology
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Keywords
- foodborne pathogens, food safety knowledge, street food, university students, food safety awareness, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhimurium, food safety education, Ghana
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