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The purpose of this research is to aim to use observation, linked to quantitative risk‐based scoring, to evaluate the effectiveness of a small‐scale consumer food safety initiative based on the social marketing approach. Evaluation of intervention effectiveness is considered to be an important component of any health education initiative. The ultimate goal for social marketing initiatives is sustained behavioural change. Thus, when determining the effectiveness of community‐based social marketing interventions, direct measurement of behaviour is advocated.

A small‐scale food safety strategy using targeted interventions was piloted in a geographical test community in South Wales, UK. Targeted consumers from the community prepared a set meal in a model domestic kitchen before, immediately after, and 4‐6 weeks after implementation of the strategy. Observations of meal preparations were made using CCTV and food‐handling behaviours were recorded and assessed using a risk‐based scoring system. A quantitative evaluation of overall and specific food safety behaviours was made, and an effect size analysis provided a measure of potential intervention effectiveness.

This pilot study suggested that “one‐off” food safety interventions developed and implemented using a social marketing approach may result in a short‐term improvement of consumer food safety behaviours. Interventions targeting specific food safety behaviours may produce a “halo effect” upon other food safety behaviours that are known, yet not consistently implemented during domestic food preparation. Intervention effect was greater immediately after implementation of the strategy than 4‐6 weeks later. Use of the risk‐based scoring system and observation techniques were effective for assessing food hygiene behaviours and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions.

The use of an observational risk‐based approach to assess consumer food safety behaviours can provide a valuable tool for evaluation of the estimated immediate and long‐term effectiveness of food safety interventions on a small scale prior to launch of a larger initiative.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent, sources, diversity, costs, formats and content of food safety educational interventions for consumers provided by UK Local Authorities (LAs). Inadequate implementation of food safety practices in the home is known to contribute to the incidence of foodborne disease and therefore effective food safety education concerning risks and correct domestic food‐handling behaviours is essential.

A postal questionnaire was administered to all Environmental Health and Health Promotion departments in LAs in 2004 (n=436). The questionnaire assessed the extent of LA provision of consumer food safety advice, types, formats and content of interventions, rationale for information provision, methods used for design and delivery of information and participation in national initiatives.

A considerable quantity of food safety advice is provided to UK consumers; in general this is variable between regions, variable in quality, infrequently evaluated and relatively uncoordinated. Overall, 95 per cent of UK LAs who responded to the questionnaire reported current provision of consumer food safety advice. The most common intervention used for provision of consumer hygiene information was leaflets (93 per cent of LAs) and data indicated that this is likely to continue. Hand‐washing (87 per cent), cross‐contamination (85 per cent) and cooking (77 per cent) were the most common issues reportedly addressed in hygiene initiatives. Less than a third of LAs reported evaluating the effectiveness of food hygiene advice.

This study has provided evidence of a large quantity of unique and diverse intervention materials across the UK, and suggests the need for the sharing of information materials and areas of innovation between LAs. Provision of generic, managed and co‐ordinated general and targeted food safety education resources in the UK may not only decrease important time and financial costs within LAs, but also increase consumer confidence in the accuracy of information provided and alleviate the risk for potential confusion of information from differing sources.

The use of an observational approach in conjunction with isolation techniques for campylobacter and salmonella detection has facilitated a detailed evaluation of the risk of cross contamination during food preparation. Identification of suspected exposure routes has linked naturally contaminated raw foods with important food‐handling malpractices, contaminated contact surfaces and ready‐to‐eat foods. In a model domestic kitchen, 29 per cent of food preparation sessions resulted in positive campylobacter isolations from prepared salads, cleaning materials and food‐contact surfaces. Typing results showed that specific campylobacter strains isolated from prepared chicken salads were the same as the strains isolated from the raw chicken pieces, indicating microbial transfer during food preparation. Data obtained from this study can be used for exposure assessment, risk management and in the development of consumer risk communication strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the evaluation of cabin crew food safety training using the Kirkpatrick model.

Using a snowballing technique, 26 cabin crew, managers, supervisors and trainers participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Summative content analysis was used to evaluate the data.

In total, 26 respondents from 20 international airlines participated in the study. All respondents agreed that evaluating cabin crew food safety/hygiene issues is important in relation to in-flight food handling; for example, “Training evaluation helps in the improvement of the future training”; “We have an end of course feedback form, either done electronically or on paper and that looks at how the delegates felt the training went, if they came away learning something new, if the environment for learning was right, all sorts of things; the questionnaire is quite comprehensive”; and “Every trainee is given a feedback form to complete”. However, significant failures in food safety training and its evaluation were identified.

The evaluation of cabin crew food safety training shows that it is ineffective in some aspects, including learning achieved and behavioural change, and these can directly impact on the implementation of food safety practices. Evaluation failures may be due to the lack of available time in relation to other cabin crew roles. Further research may consider using a larger sample size, evaluating training effectiveness using social cognition models and assessments of airline and cabin crew food safety culture.

This is the first study that evaluates cabin crew food safety training using the Kirkpatrick model. The findings provide an understanding of the current evaluation of cabin crew food safety training and can be used by airlines for improving and developing effective future food safety training programmes. This, in turn, may reduce the risk of passenger and crew foodborne disease.

The home is the location for a substantial number of cases of food poisoning and improving consumer food safety practices is important. This paper proposes investigating how consumers perceive their own abilities and level of food safety risk, as well as attitudes to different forms of interventions which is a largely unstudied area.

Postal questionnaires were sent to a linked demographic quota of adults in South Wales. Responses were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Overall the majority of consumers were positively disposed to food safety education, although variation occurred within social economic groups. The majority of respondents expressed confidence in their own abilities, although were prepared to listen to food safety advice. Respondents strongly believed it was important for television chefs to implement necessary food safety practices and indicated optimistic and social desirability bias. Information on risk could be beneficial, although concerns were expressed if this was too graphic. A number of correlations between attitudes were identified which could be of importance in designing food safety interventions.

Findings from this study, which have been supported by qualitative findings from focus groups should be considered in the design of intervention strategies.

Consumers often use inappropriate food‐handling practices and improving these could help to reduce the incidence of foodborne disease. However the development of an effective food safety education strategy is considered complex and could be improved by having a greater understanding of the consumer. This paper proposes investigating the modes and channels of communication that maybe used in education strategies.

A self‐complete postal questionnaire was distributed to a linked demographic quota of adults in South Wales. Responses were entered into a specially constructed food safety database.

Results indicated that the Environmental Health departments and UK Food Standards Agency were perceived to be the most trusted and credible organisations that can provide food safety information. The most believable spokespersons for promotion of food safety advice were determined as Environmental Health officers and the Chief Medical Officer. The most preferred source of food safety information identified were food packaging, followed by advice from a medical doctor.

Although only a relatively small sample size, many of the findings have been corroborated by qualitative data from nationwide focus groups. The data have been used as the precursor for a large nationwide study of over 2,000 consumers and this should further validate the data.

The results will be of benefit to a range of organisations currently engaged in food safety education as well as identifying potentially underutilised channels of communication.

The purpose of this research is to increase consumers' use of food thermometers to test the endpoint temperature of small cuts of meats.

The project integrates research, classroom and non‐formal education.

Instant‐read food thermometers were available in >73 percent of USA supermarkets and most were accurate within 1.1°C. Lethality findings include that ground beef patties should either be cooked in a two‐sided grill or turned frequently during cooking. Focus group participants said the primary motivator to food thermometer use was avoidance of foodborne illness. Educational materials positively affected thermometer use among consumers.

Behavior change will be facilitated by widespread availability of thermometers, inclusion of endpoint temperatures in recipes, and seeing others use food thermometers.

This project develops and delivers information to encourage use of food thermometers to assess endpoint temperature when cooking small meat items.

Becoming self-employed has appeal to both genders. For many women, balancing work and family is a key motivator. However, businesses owned and operated by women are often very small, with limited turnover. This potentially can have disastrous consequences when these women come to retire, unless a solid retirement savings strategy has been considered. The purpose of this paper is to outline many of the issues and implications of a lack of research in this area.

Data were collected from 201 small business owners via a convenience sample derived from various databases. The survey was completed on-line and analysed using SPSS.

Many self-employed women in Australia have neither enough savings for their retirement, or an actual retirement plan. This is exacerbated by the lack of regulation requiring mandatory contributions into a superannuation (personal pension) fund by small business owners, unlike pay as you go employees, whose employers must contribute a certain about on their behalf.

Middle-to-older aged women are the biggest cohort of homeless people in Australia. This is likely to grow as self-employed Baby Boomers stop working and find they do not have sufficient personal financial resources to fund their retirement.

Whereas there is much written about gender and small business ownership, as well as retirement and savings planning, these two areas have not been researched before in Australia. Yet it is an issue for the majority of small business owners, particularly women.

In a highly competitive globalised environment, the innovation behaviour of employees plays a key role in the economic viability and competitive advantage of organisations. In this context, developing the understanding of innovation work behaviour is important for the field of individual innovation and this is the focus of the study. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Data were collected using a survey from 549 employees in organisations operating in four major business centres in South Africa.

On-the-job embeddedness was positively and significantly related to innovation behaviours by employees in organisations operating in diverse industries. Consistent with the view that small organisations have a “behavioural” innovation advantage over larger organisations, the size of the organisation moderated the positive relationship between on-the-job embeddedness and innovation behaviours. On-the-job embeddedness was more positively related to innovation behaviours in small organisations than in larger organisations.

Employees who are highly embedded in their jobs (but not necessarily their communities) are more likely to enact innovation behaviours than employees who are not similarly embedded. Human resource management professionals and line managers can potentially foster employee innovation behaviours through adopting strategies aimed at positively influencing the fit, links and sacrifice dimensions of on-the-job embeddedness.

The study contributes to theoretical and empirical expansion of job embeddedness (JE) by examining: how work and non-work forces that attach employees to their organisations influence their propensity to enact innovation behaviours; and how organisation size moderates the relationship between JE and innovation behaviours. The results will help managers who wish to foster innovation.

The purpose of this research is to show the evaluation of food hygiene knowledge and self‐reported behaviours of school children, assessment of children's attitudes towards food hygiene and evaluation of barriers to the adoption of appropriate food hygiene behaviours.

The food hygiene knowledge and self‐reported behaviours of pupils (4 and 14 years; Key Stages 1‐3 in the English system – or Scottish equivalent) were determined using age‐appropriate knowledge quizzes completed by 2,259 pupils across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Attitudes towards food hygiene and barriers to performing desirable hygiene‐related behaviours were established through semi‐structured interviews with 82 pupils who completed knowledge tasks in South East England.

Children generally had good knowledge of food hygiene. However, there were misconceptions about the nature of micro‐organisms and how they affect food. In addition, a lack of reminders and practical food activities, especially at Key Stage 2 (7‐11 years), coupled with poor hand‐washing facilities, meant that children did not always adopt desirable behaviours. Children gave suggestions for ways to help others to remember good practice.

The study identified areas of weakness in pupils' hygiene knowledge and understanding and has determined barriers to adoption of desirable behaviours at all times. It has also suggested ways in which food hygiene education could be made more engaging for pupils, and other methods to encourage good practice.