Search results

Naturally women have menstruation cycle in permanent time that is once in a month, destroying eggs and leaving the body in the form of bad blood. Girls begin their periods between the ages of 10–18. The average age is 13. Through the ages women have used different forms of menstrual protection. Women often used strips of folded old cloth (rags) to catch their menstrual blood. This old cloth is not recommended for health; in these cases, infection in the body is not friendly with the environment. By considering the above issues for women, the purpose of this paper is to design and develop a feminine reusable pad without a pad holder for economically challenged people around Ethiopian rural area where they live, well supported by the baseline survey and also with different technical tests of fabric and product in order to take care of women’s health-related issues. So a reusable pad is needed to hold off the blood, and it is necessary to change the reusable pad, at least three times a day in order to maintain proper hygiene. A proper reusable pad is made of cotton to absorb the blood, and sticker to stick the pad to the panties.

The reusable pad is developed with three different types of fabrics, forming three different layers of the product, such as 100 percent white knitted cotton, which is used as a top layer attached to the skin, which acts as an absorbing fluid and creates comfort to the wearer, polywadding (non-woven) fabric is used at the middle layer, which is mainly used for absorbent purposes, easily washable, and retains cotton fabric shapes from deformation, and water-repellent fabric is used as the lower layer, which acts as a resistant for the blood to prevent from seepage.

This new product is developed free from different harmful chemicals and easily available in the market, and it also has good air permeability, good water absorption, comfort, cost affordable, has the best tensile strength, high capacity to hold liquid, best water repellent, and many more features. With the help of this new product, which is aimed at the middle-/lower-middle class people, it gives a lot of benefits with respect to the cost and also takes care of women’s health with all the unique features.

This is the author’s original research work, which is focused on people who lived in a rural area and were economically challenged. The reusable pad is made up of three different fabrics, such as cotton, polywadding and water repellent. Each of the materials and designs to be used is of the author’s; if it is necessary you can cross-check with other works.

The present study intends to highlight the issues and challenges pertinent to sanitation practices among urban slum women in India.

The primary qualitative data has been collected from 100 households sampled by stratified random and purposive sampling through in-depth interviews, and a structured interview schedule and themes were developed accordingly.

The main theme-based results of the study included the challenges of open defecation in slums, public toilets as an alternative, sanitation-related stress in slum women, compromised state of health of women and children, menstrual hygiene among women in slums and increasing burden on women in terms of water management. The study recommends the creation of toilets in every slum locality with maintenance and awareness to be raised.

Urban sanitation has received less research than rural sanitation. The present study focused on the issues of urban sanitation, which are often neglected. To ensure the study's uniqueness, researchers visited and mentioned each open defecation site to understand the situation.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2022-0782

In the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, organizations now are expected to serve customers who are highly conscious of safety and sanitation. Among others, the hospitality industry is significantly and negatively influenced by this pandemic. Given the unique characteristics of services, using advanced technology is not enough to create a memorable experience without physical interaction between service providers and customers. Thus, this study aims to define the “new normal” for service customers and to explore the “new service design” for the hotel industry.

As most of the Southeast Asian countries heavily rely on the tourism industry, this study focuses on one of the emerging tourism destinations in this region, Malaysia. The data is collected through in-depth interviews with 17 potential national and international tourists.

The results suggest that considering the “new normal” for customers, there is an immediate need for the hotel industry to revamp their service design by mainly practicing disinfection and sanitation activities, re-designing overall infrastructure and introducing promotional offers.

This study is novel in its kind as it provides useful guidelines for both practitioners and academicians/researchers. Under this crucial time, very few research is conducted specifically focusing on the hotel industry and tourists’ behaviors amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will provide in-depth knowledge about tourists’ expectations from the hotel services, especially in their own voices.

The purpose of this paper is to identify safety hazards likely to be encountered during post‐disaster recovery and reconstruction, identify barriers to effective safety training and hazard mitigation, and provide actionable guidance on methods to safely avoid and abate such hazards.

Surveys were administered to 400 participants at 13 training sites to evaluate safety practices among reconstruction contractors and workers.

A comparison of survey results to hazards likely to cause injuries and fatalities during post‐disaster reconstruction indicates that little effort is made to assess workers' physical condition or immunization records prior to deployment. Furthermore, data suggest that workers lack safety training in reconstruction‐specific hazards such as electrocution, falls, chemical and biological hazards (e.g. contaminated flood water), and equipment hazards (aerial lifts, ladders, electric equipment, generators, etc.). Findings also indicate that training effectiveness is further compromised by limited language and literacy skills of workers, high turnover of workers, and insufficient resources for adequate safety training frequency and duration, especially among smaller contractors (<100 workers).

The paper is based on original research funded by the US Government following Hurricane Katrina and is intended to aid in the development of targeted training to reduce worker injuries and fatalities during post‐disaster reconstruction.

Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response Model, this study aims to investigate how the intention of Chinese guests to revisit a hotel (response) is triggered by the quality of the hotel’s hygiene protocols (stimulus) during the pandemic. Brand image, perceived guest satisfaction and perceived customer trust were examined as the organism factors in this model.

The quantitative method was adopted to collect data via a structured online survey of 385 Chinese hotel guests. Their responses were analyzed using SPSS (v.26) and SmartPLS (3.3.2) software.

The quality of hotel hygiene protocols was found to have a significant impact on hotel brand image, perceived guest satisfaction and perceived guest trust. Hotel brand image, perceived guest satisfaction and perceived guest trust, in turn, demonstrated significant relationships with guests’ revisit intention.

Theoretically, the present study offers a framework to understand the impact of hotel hygiene protocols on guest revisit intention. Practically, the findings of the study encourage industry practitioners to implement proper safety protocols and standard operating procedures related to COVID-19.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, hotel hygiene standards have become a key concern for guests. The current study provides important and meaningful insights into whether and how hotel hygiene quality promotes guest revisit intention.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the use of a team‐based organizational structure for the purpose of improving the quality of the services provided by the health care system. More specifically, the research aims to investigate the efficiency of a cross‐functional team‐based structure in regard to improving knowledge‐sharing and hereby reducing hospital‐acquired infections (i.e. health‐care associated infections) caused by insufficient hand hygiene.

The findings are drawn from interviews, observations, and desk research conducted in a large Danish university hospital. The paper has applied a case study methodology using grounded theory and has approached the analysis by employing a holistic view.

The paper identifies the necessity for educating the hygiene teams in regard to team processes. Professional knowledge of proper hygiene behavior is to be combined with knowledge of procurement, processes of change, and teamwork in such a manner that the members of the hygiene teams can implement these tools effectively.

The study is based on a small sample. The context and process imposed constraints and the findings are context specific; this has implications for the application of the findings to other settings.

Knowledge about proper hand washing is not enhanced through written policies and procedures.

The paper offers insight into means of enhancing hygiene standards by the integration of organizational processes and change with knowledge and knowledge transfer within a hospital.

The purpose of this study is to explore food safety measures in catering and special event programs, especially with respect to the knowledge and implementation of knowledge of food handlers in the catering sector in the USA.

A quantitative approach was utilized in this study. A questionnaire was distributed to 557 respondents, representing over 40 chapters in the National Association of Catering Executives. The questionnaire was divided into three sections of food safety (food handling, equipment, and personal hygiene). This study utilized t‐tests and ANOVA to test for differences between gender, training, management status, and employment status with regard to food safety knowledge and practices.

Results suggested that employees in the catering industry who work part‐time need more training and development. Management was seen as more knowledgeable than non‐management personnel and was seen to have more training. Overall the study found that there is a need to focus on training for employees, with even greater emphasis for new employees.

The results of this study provide significant evidence that greater emphasis must take place to require proper training of all employees in the catering sector. An educational training program that focuses on the catering sector can be developed by utilizing the usable factors gained from this research.

The present study provides a national survey representing a large geographic area of the USA, and focuses on catering servers, front‐line staff, and management in the special event industry. This study also combines the safety issues of equipment, personal hygiene, and food handling into one study as a whole to examine the overall knowledge of catering employees in the industry.

The aim of the study is to integrate food hygiene into quantity food production systems.

The present study illustrates the concepts of food hygiene and standard operation of food production systems in detail, and it integrates both of these concepts evidencing that an integrated system can be used as a primary function of every establishment with regard to serving food safely.

A successful food hygiene system must consist of four components: maintaining safe conditions for the food from the time of purchasing to the time it is served to the customer, development of hygienic behavior in the employees that come in contact, in any way, with the customers’ meal, maintaining clean and sanitary facilities, and application of an adequate Pest Control Management system.

By integrating food hygiene into the operational systems, a powerful message will be sent to the personnel; that food hygiene is a primary function of the establishment and must at all times be enforced.

The purpose of this paper is to assess hygiene practices during fish selling in retail stores.

The data were collected by observations during inspections carried out in 100 randomly selected food retail stores, both independent and chain, selling fresh fish, fish products and other seafood. Stores were located in and around the area of Warsaw, Poland. The inspection check list consisted of 43 questions based on rigorist requirements of Commission Regulation (EC) 852, 853 and Codex Alimentarius. The question form was divided into three hygiene sectors: hygiene conditions of seafood departments; hygiene of fish selling process; personal hygiene of employees. Inspections were unannounced, and were conducted by discreet visual observations of employees work routine and selling procedures.

The level of hygiene compliances with inspection criteria was unexpectedly low. The highest percentage of compliance appeared in the hygiene of fish selling processes (in 44 percent of the stores compliance with evaluated criteria was found), less one compliance levels appeared in personal hygiene (18 percent) and hygiene of seafood department’s hygiene conditions (23 percent). Neither the size of the store, nor its location and type (independent and local or global chain) affected the compliance rate.

The main research limitation is that assessment was done only by observation method. This is one of audit/inspection methods according to ISO 19011/2011, guidelines for auditing management systems. However, this kind of inspection cannot assess microbiological cleanliness or other like ATP or symptoms of diseases expect of only visible signs. The used inspection check list needs more testing and more analyses should be done for its reliability and validity.

Adequate hygiene practices are critical in preventing cross-contamination. However, none of the inspected stores ensured full implementation of all hygiene requirements during the sale of fish. The results indicated that a greater effort should be made to increase hygiene level both in small and large size retail stores. The designed inspection questionnaire proved to be a successful format for detailed evaluation of hygiene practices during the sale of fish. However, more work and analyses should be done for its reliability and validity.

The findings bring some information for the consumers that in many retail stores the hygiene level during the fish sales might be insufficient.

The paper presents additional and detailed data on hygiene practices during fish selling, which are rarely pointed out by other authors. The applied evaluation method showed a low level of compliance with the rigorous hygienic criteria, adopted in this study, that may raise some food safety concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the food safety knowledge and practices of catering employees in one city in the Southwestern United States.

The researchers administered a 20‐question food safety survey to catering employees and observed their actions while performing catering duties.

The paper finds that employees earned a mean score of 71.5 per cent on the 20‐question survey. They were most knowledgeable about personal hygiene, but did not practise proper hygiene during the catering functions. The most common food safety violations were not wearing gloves when required, not washing hands, not checking food temperatures, and not properly covering foods in warming and/or refrigeration units.

Lack of interest and concern about bad publicity prevented many caterers from participating in the study. The presence of observers during a catering event could have affected employees' performance.

The results showed need for improvement in both knowledge and practice of food safety and sanitation and significant differences in knowledge between English‐ and Spanish‐speaking respondents and employees of independent versus corporate operations.

The paper reveals that the US Food and Drug Administration has a goal of reducing the five risk factors of food‐borne illness by 25 percent by 2010. Catering operations face great challenges in minimizing these risks.