Evaluation of a food safety education on knowledge, attitude and practice among 1300 college students of Henan province, China

Background: To investigate the knowledge, attitudes and practice of food safety among college students of Henan Province, China and to evaluate the effect of food safety education. Methods: We randomly selected 1,300 students by stratified and cluster random sampling methods, then conducted questionnaire survey on their knowledge, attitudes and practice on food safety. Results: The mean and standard deviation of food safety knowledge scores is 62.6 +/- 14.6. The average score of girls (63.8 +/- 15.0) and medical students are higher than that of boys (60.3 +/- 13.7) (P < 0.01) and non-medical students (56.0 +/- 11.4) (P < 0.01). 95.2% of the students very concerned about food safety issues. However, as encountering with unsafe food, only 0.39% of them chose to complain to the Consumers' Association. Conclussion: It is very necessary to carry out food hygiene education among college students to improve their knowledge level of food safety.