An In-Depth Exploration of Food Safety Performance of Independent Somali Restaurants: A closer look at food safety cultural norms, longitudinal inspection outcome, impact of oral training and the promise of letter grading

Abstract

Public health researchers have increasingly found food safety concerns with ethnic owned restaurants yet ethnic food consumption is on the increase. This dissertation provides a deeper look at ethnic food safety compliance from one immigrant community and presents its arguments and findings through three different studies. The first study analyzes data on food safety cultural norms from seven focus groups of Somali immigrants, and maps out these norms against food safety regulations. It then examines the relationship between these cultural norms and food safety inspections by examining seven years of violation data from 62 independently operated Somali restaurants. A strong correspondence was observed between cultural norms and patterns of violations typically not addressed in current food safety education programs. The second paper compares food safety compliance of independently owned and operated Somali restaurants to non-Somalis; it then compares the performance of establishments with longer inspection history with newer ones, and investigates the role that restaurant letter grading could play in improving sanitation. The results concur with current research findings on three fronts: (a) poor food safety compliance was more frequent in ethnic than non-ethnic food establishments, (b) food safety compliance was slightly related to the number of inspections, (c) inadequate facility design and maintenance were associated with poorer sanitation. And finally, the third study examines the effectiveness of an oral learner teaching strategy as a food safety teaching method for a new immigrant/refugee food service workers through certified food manger exam performance. Statistically significant differences between the oral learner teaching strategy and traditional group were observed.