FOOD SAFETY AWARENESS AMONG PRIVATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, THE CASE OF PRESBYTERIAN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, GHANA

The study examined the awareness of private university students about food safety, sources of information on food safety and food hazards that were of concern to them. A cross-sectional study involving 101 students conveniently sampled from one private university in Ghana was carried out. The result showed that 56.6% and 35.5% of the respondents were either well informed or somewhat informed about food safety respectively. Major sources of information on food safety were radio (26.3%), books (23.7%), television (21.1%) and School (19.7%). About 94.7% and 93.4% of the students either always or sometimes examined canned foods for damages and expiry date respectively before patronising packaged foods. Hazards from microbial (73.7%), pesticides residues (57.9%), heavy metals (53.7%) and preservatives (55.3%) were of major concern to them but took no measures to address their perceived risk. Even though students were informed and aware of the health hazards of food contamination, they lacked information on specific actions to take to safeguard their health. Therefore, discussions on food safety issues should include safety measures to help consumers take critical steps to reduce health hazards from food sources. Further study to examine how awareness about food safety has influenced consumers’ choices is recommended.