How I Stopped Worrying About Hand Washing and Learned to Love the Process (50m Lecture)

Challenges remain to the industry in providing relevant food risk data to specific industry operations. Hand washing is a recognized public health intervention but despite more than a decade of continued efforts to educate and train food handlers, the occurrence of hand washing violations has remained virtually the same (< 0.17%) in Maricopa County. Data suggest that traditional approaches, which only address the symptom, are ineffective at changing behaviors. Maricopa County has shifted our focus from the symptom (lack of hand washing) to partner with operators in understanding their processes and work within these processes to correct behavior under our Cutting Edge Program. For example, within 1 year (2012-2013), Maricopa County’s program achieved a 44 percent reduction in the occurrence of hand wash violations at participating establishments. We believe that active managerial control as expressed through our Cutting Edge program brings together relevant food risk data and their associated interventions to specific industry practices; thereby, improving public health for our citizens.
This presentation will explain the program and principles behind this approach as well as review preliminary findings regarding the effectiveness of our public health interventions.