Asssessment of Environmental Condition of Food Vending Sites and Food Handling Practices in Yenagoa Bayelsa State, Nigeria

Aim/Objective: This study determine the common practice adopted by public food vendors and the environmental condition of the vending sites in yenagoa LGA. Methods: A descriptive research design was adopted for this study sample size to select all 330 participants randomly with a well-structured questionnaire and a checklist in line with study objectives to obtain data from respondents. Results: Concerning the distribution of participants age group it was observed that 38% of the participants were within the age group of 28-32years which possessed the highest proportion from the study population, 27% were within the age group of 38years and above, 19% were within the age group of 33-37years, while the least proportion 16% of the participants were within the age group of 23-27years. The sex distribution indicates that majority (87%) of the participants were female while (13%) were male. The distribution of participants ethnicity indicates that Majority (42%) of the participants were Yoruba, followed by (38%) of the participants indicates Igbo, 6% were Ijaw, 5% were Ogbia, 8% of the participants were others, while (1%) possessing lowest proportion from the study population represent Hausa. The distribution of participants religion indicates that majority (98%) were Christian, (1.2%) were Islamic while (0.90%) indicates others. Finally, the distribution of participants educational status indicates that majority (47%) had secondary education, followed by 30% with primary education while (23%) of the participants had tertiary education. The results indicates that food vendors practice environmental sanitation with a mean score of 3.73, the presence of waste bine was observed with a mean score of 4.33, the presence of hand towel with a mean score of 3.68, presence of soap were observed with a mean score of 3.40. Water supply possess a mean score of 2.84 while presence of files/rat and cockroach possessed a mean score of 3.14. Therefore with the grand mean of 3.52 which im