Date of Conferral

2018

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Health

Advisor

James Rohrer

Abstract

Despite the efforts of food safety regulations and rules, food contamination remains a public health concern and prevalent vehicle of pathogens. This study identifies the predictors of food risk in different types of food establishments in Miami Dade County, Florida during the period November 2014 - November 2016. Guided by the epidemiologic triangle model, this correlational study analyzed the log number of risk factor violations and failure rates controlling for US Census sociodemographic data (2010 to 2014) for the food establishment neighborhoods by using linear and logistic regression. Results indicated that most of food entity types are significant predictors of risk violations. Among all the significant predictor food establishments, grocery stores (b = 2.877. p < 0.001) had a higher increase in violations. For the demographic variables, the only significant variable was the number of single parent households (B = .001, p = 0.022). The result reveals a significant association between food entity types and failing inspection (p < 0.005). Among all the entity types, convenience store with significant food service and/or packaged ice (22.2 %) have the highest percentage fail rate within inspection rate outcome. Findings indicate that a risk-based approach to food risk factor violations frequency could reduce the number of violations, particularly in convenience and grocery stores with the most violations and failing rate.

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