Abstract:
Background: Meat Hygiene refers to a set of activities requires the implementation of specific
standards, codes of practices and regulatory action. In Ethiopia meat safety is an important
concern, because of deep cultural tradition of consuming raw meat. This current study revealed
that meat handlers’ knowledge and practice level was moderate level, this coupled with butcher
shops materials gaps observed could have serious implications for contaminations of meat.
Objective: To assess meat safety knowledge, hygiene practice and associated factors among meat
handlers in Sheger City.
Methods: An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted among meat handlers in
selected butcher shops of Sheger City from May 02 to June 24, 2023. Simple random sampling
technique was used to select 105 butcher shops having a total of 600 workers in the three selected
sub-cities. A total of 421 meat handlers were selected using simple random sampling techniques.
The data were collected through face to face interview using questionnaire & entered into Epi
Info version 7.2 and exported to SPSS version for analysis. Ordinal logistic regression model was
used to identify factors significantly associated with meat safety and hygiene practice. The
strength of association between independent & dependent variables was assessed by odds ratios
with 95% confidence interval. The model goodness of fit and assumptions were checked by the
modified Pearson and deviance tests.
Result: From 421 meat handlers 28.5%, 47.5% and 24% have High level, Moderate & Low level
knowledge respectively. And 20.2% Good, 57.7% Moderate & 22.1% had Poor level of hygiene
Practice based on modified Bloom’s cut-off Points. Training on meat hygiene (AOR=2.01,
95%CI: 1.20–3.37), educational status (AOR=22.81, 95%CI: 6.36–81.85), experience on meat
(AOR=3.07, 95% CI:1.38–6.80), monthly income (AOR=3.99, 95%CI: 1.61–9.94) & medical
checkups (AOR=12.27, 95% CI: 6.59–22.85) were significantly associated with meat safety
knowledge. And educational status, training, experience and medical checkup were significantly
associated with meat hygiene practice.
Conclusion: The current study revealed that near to half of the study subjects had moderate level
knowledge & more than half had moderate level of hygiene practice toward meat safety. More
than half of meat handlers were not got training & majority of them did not conduct medical
checkup during six months. Therefore, conduct training, supervision & regulation activities will
be expected from concerned body to improve meat handlers’ knowledge & hygiene practice
