title: Food safety and hygiene lessons in the primary school: implications for risk-reduction behaviors.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study describes an effective educational program to improve children's knowledge about characteristics of microorganisms and food contamination, and their personal hygiene behaviors.
  
  
  METHODS
  Between November 2011 and March 2012, a health campaign, targeted at fifth-grade students of 12 public primary compulsory schools, was conceived. Participants were divided into two classes, a theoretical class and a practical class based on two different teaching approaches. To address children's knowledge and behaviors on the program topics and to monitor the effectiveness of the health campaign on changing pre-existent concepts and habits, pre- and post-intervention questionnaires were administered both to students and parents. Poisson and binomial mixed models were performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Two hundred forty-nine children were enrolled. Results show an overall improvement in children's knowledge both for the practical and theoretical classes (incident risk ratios [IRRs]: 1.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1-1.2, p<0.001 and 1.1, 95% CI 1.0-1.1, p<0.001, post- versus pre-intervention). The same effect was observed for children's behavior, comparing post- versus pre-intervention for both groups (IRRs were 3.4, 95% CI 2.2-5.2, p<0.001 and 3.2 95% CI 1.9-5.5, p<0.001). CONCLUSION AND APPLICATIONS: The methodology described in this article might be usefully adopted to conduct food safety classes, contributing to the amelioration of children's awareness on food related risks and leading to significant benefit for primary prevention.
authors.affiliation: 1 Food Safety Department, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie , Legnaro, Italy .
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Losasso
authors.forename: Veronica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Cappa
authors.forename: Veronica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Cibin
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mantovani
authors.forename: Norberto
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Faccio
authors.forename: Igino
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Andrighetto
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ricci
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000517:prevention & control; D005516:Food Microbiology / Q000193:education; D059022:Food Safety; D005517:Foodborne Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control; D015438:Health Behavior; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors; D012574:Schools; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013664:Teaching Materials