A study on food hygiene practices in chop bars in the Kumasi metropolis

The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) and the District Health Management Team (DHMT); which is the Government agency in charge of the implementation of health programmes in the metropolis; have been concerned about poor sanitary conditions in the metropolis. The metropolis has a host of health facilities including a teaching hospital; five urban health centres and over 100 private health facilities. But poor sanitary conditions have led to a very high morbidity and risk of epidemics. Diarrhoeal diseases remain the second commonest disease reported in all the health institutions. There is a daily influx of about 200;000 people into the metropolis and this had led to the flourishing of the cooked food business in the metropolis. Most of the food sellers prepare their food under unhygienic conditions. In-spite of the health education given by the KMA and DHMT on food hygiene and food hygiene practices; the education seemed not to have had any impact on hygiene practice. This has necessitated the study to determine the factors leading to the low practices on food hygiene among chop bar keepers in the metropolis

An investigation into the utilisation of non-formal education facilitators as health education agents

The findings of this study show that the Non-formal Education (NFE) facilitators provide an appropriate opportunity to carry out health education activities using non-literate materials and materials in local languages to supplement teaching sessions. The flashcards and clipcharts were found to be the most popular materials. It was found that many facilitators are committed to their responsibilities; and they love their respective classes despite the fact that they are denied of their promised incentives. The facilitators need to have adequate information on the health topics in the primer series and on general health issues. Incentives for the facilitators and supervisors need to be seriously considered. The lack of incentives resulted in a low level of motivation being expressed by many facilitators and this determined that it would be presently inappropriate to utilise these agents until their motivational level had improved