title: Physicians as food-safety educators: a practices and perceptions survey.
abstract: An estimated 4 million bacterial foodborne illnesses occur in the United States annually. Many of these illnesses can be prevented by educating the public about food-safety practices. We investigated both the role of physicians as food-safety educators and the barriers to providing food-safety information. Participants were randomly selected physicians (n=3117) practicing within the surveillance area of the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network; 1100 were included in the study. Although only 331 (30%) of 1110 respondents provided food-safety information to their patients, 524 (68%) of 769 who did not provide information expressed interest in doing so. Physicians were more likely to provide food-safety information to patients if they perceived foodborne disease to be a serious problem, perceived food-safety education as their role, felt that patients perceived them as a valuable resource for food-safety advice, or felt comfortable making food-safety recommendations. A national physician education campaign that addresses barriers in food-safety education could improve food-safety education by physicians.
authors.affiliation: Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. skwong@spawar.navy.mil
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Ruthanne
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marcus
authors.forename: Marguerite
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hawkins
authors.forename: Sue
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shallow
authors.forename: Katherine G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: McCombs
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Swanson
authors.forename: Bridget
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Beletshachew
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Shiferaw
authors.forename: Robb
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Garman
authors.forename: Kristen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Noonan
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Van Gilder
mesh_terms: D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D003625:Data Collection; D005516:Food Microbiology; D005517:Foodborne Diseases; D006801:Humans; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010465:Perception; D010819:Physician's Role; D014481:United States