Environmental hygiene in outdoor food markets in Africa: a scoping review

Outdoor food markets represent important locations where foodborne illnesses and other infectious diseases can spread. Countries in Africa face particular challenges given the importance of these markets in food supply and low rates of access to safely managed water and sanitation. We undertook a sc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of water, sanitation, and hygiene for development sanitation, and hygiene for development, 2023-04, Vol.13 (4), p.276-288
Main Authors: Nijhawan, Anisha, Budge, Sophie, Reddy, Olivia, Bartram, Jamie, Howard, Guy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adequacy
Behavior
Disease control
Disease prevention
Disease transmission
drainage
Environmental hygiene
Environmental studies
Epidemics
Food
Food contamination
Food contamination & poisoning
Food supply
Foodborne diseases
handwashing
Hygiene
Infectious diseases
Infrastructure
Respiratory diseases
Sanitation
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
solid waste
vendor behaviour
Vendors
Waste disposal
Water supply
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Summary:Outdoor food markets represent important locations where foodborne illnesses and other infectious diseases can spread. Countries in Africa face particular challenges given the importance of these markets in food supply and low rates of access to safely managed water and sanitation. We undertook a scoping review of evidence related to disease transmission in food markets in sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and identified 46 papers for data extraction and synthesis. Vendor behaviour or awareness was reported in the majority of papers and about half reported on market infrastructure. Fewer studies have been reported on regulatory environments or food contamination. Studies on water supply, sanitation and handwashing facilities focused on the presence of services and did not evaluate quality, thus conclusions cannot be drawn on service adequacy. Studies of vendor behaviour were primarily based on self-reporting and subject to bias. Most studies reported high levels of vendor awareness of the need for hygiene, but where observations were also conducted, these showed lower levels of behaviours in practice. Our findings suggest that there are limited studies on environmental hygiene in outdoor food markets and this is an area warranting further research, including into the quality of services and addressing methodological weaknesses.
ISSN:2043-9083
2408-9362
DOI:10.2166/washdev.2023.221