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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Increase the proportion of people who wash their hands and surfaces often when preparing food — FS‑07 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About this objective  |  Methodology  |  History

About this objective

Data

Data Source:  Food Safety Survey, FDA

National baseline: 70.0 percent of consumers correctly followed the recommendation to properly clean hands in 2016

National target: 74.0 percent

Numerator
The percent of consumers aged 18 years and older who report they follow the key food safety practice: clean.
Denominator
Number of practices measured among persons aged 18 years and older who prepare food (consumers).
National target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
National target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.10.
1
National target-setting method justification
Trend data were not available for this objective. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.1. This method was used because it was a statistically significant improvement from the baseline.

Methodology

Questions used to obtain the national baseline data

(For additional information, please visit the data source page linked above.)

From the 2016 Food Safety Survey:

Numerator:
Before you begin preparing food, how often do you wash your hands with soap? [Asked of those who have a refrigerator and either a stove or microwave]
  1. All of the time
  2. Most of the time
  3. Some of the time
  4. Rarely
After you have cracked open raw eggs, do you usually continue cooking, or do you first rinse your hands with water, wipe them, or wash them with soap? [Asked of those who prepare the main meal all or some of the time]
  1. Continue cooking
  2. Rinse or wipe hands
  3. Wash with soap
  4. Never handle raw eggs
After handling raw meat or chicken, do you usually continue cooking, or do you first rinse your hands with water, or wipe them, or wash them with soap? [Asked of those who prepare raw meat or chicken]
  1. Continue cooking
  2. Rinse or wipe hands
  3. Wash with soap
  4. Never handle raw meat or chicken
After handling raw fish, do you usually continue cooking, or do you first rinse your hands with water, or wipe them, or wash them with soap? [Asked of those who prepare raw fish or shellfish]
  1. Continue cooking
  2. Rinse or wipe hands
  3. Wash with soap
  4. Never handle raw fish

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Retained, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 with no change in measurement.

1. Effect size h=0.1 was chosen to correspond with 10% improvement from a baseline of 50%.