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Plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of Egyptians

INTRODUCTION: Plastic is extensively used in everyday life, particularly for food and beverage containers. The inappropriate use of these containers may lead to the leaching of various chemicals from plastic, such as bisphenol A, phthalate, and styrene, which cause numerous adverse health effects. T...

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Autores principales: Hassan, Fatma Mohamed, El Desouky, Eman D., Salem, Marwa Rashad, Abdelsabour, Motaze Adel, Abdelmoneim, Mostafa Alaa, Elsaieed, Mohamed Mahmoud, Ali, Mona Mohamed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10569476/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37841707
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1146800
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author Hassan, Fatma Mohamed
El Desouky, Eman D.
Salem, Marwa Rashad
Abdelsabour, Motaze Adel
Abdelmoneim, Mostafa Alaa
Elsaieed, Mohamed Mahmoud
Ali, Mona Mohamed
author_facet Hassan, Fatma Mohamed
El Desouky, Eman D.
Salem, Marwa Rashad
Abdelsabour, Motaze Adel
Abdelmoneim, Mostafa Alaa
Elsaieed, Mohamed Mahmoud
Ali, Mona Mohamed
author_sort Hassan, Fatma Mohamed
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Plastic is extensively used in everyday life, particularly for food and beverage containers. The inappropriate use of these containers may lead to the leaching of various chemicals from plastic, such as bisphenol A, phthalate, and styrene, which cause numerous adverse health effects. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward using plastic for food and drinks among a sample of the Egyptian population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A questionnaire was designed based on scientific literature to assess sociodemographic data, knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward the use of plastic for food and drinks. A total of 639 participants were recruited by employing the convenience sampling technique. RESULTS: More than half of the participants (347, 54%) had poor knowledge scores. Personal experiences, social media, and web pages represented the most common knowledge sources. A comparison between plastic-related knowledge scores and the studied sociodemographic characteristics revealed statistically significant differences in age, gender, education, marital status, residence, working, and socioeconomic standard. A good attitude was reported by the majority (515, 80.6%) of participants. The majority (493, 77.2%) were occasional and frequent plastic users and the practice scores were significantly associated with age, education, residence, and socioeconomic standard. Higher educational level, gender (women), and rural residence were predictors of good participants knowledge, while lower socioeconomic status and urban residence were predictors of bad participants practice in a multivariate logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION: The observed unsatisfactory knowledge and practice scores vs. the high attitude indicates a knowledge gap that can help direct future improvements. We call for public awareness programs about safe plastic use and the related health hazards of plastic chemicals. We also stress upon the urgent need for a collaboration between health authorities and the plastic and food industry to guarantee that information about proper plastic use is conveyed to consumers.
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spelling pubmed-105694762023-10-13 Plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of Egyptians Hassan, Fatma Mohamed El Desouky, Eman D. Salem, Marwa Rashad Abdelsabour, Motaze Adel Abdelmoneim, Mostafa Alaa Elsaieed, Mohamed Mahmoud Ali, Mona Mohamed Front Public Health Public Health INTRODUCTION: Plastic is extensively used in everyday life, particularly for food and beverage containers. The inappropriate use of these containers may lead to the leaching of various chemicals from plastic, such as bisphenol A, phthalate, and styrene, which cause numerous adverse health effects. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward using plastic for food and drinks among a sample of the Egyptian population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A questionnaire was designed based on scientific literature to assess sociodemographic data, knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward the use of plastic for food and drinks. A total of 639 participants were recruited by employing the convenience sampling technique. RESULTS: More than half of the participants (347, 54%) had poor knowledge scores. Personal experiences, social media, and web pages represented the most common knowledge sources. A comparison between plastic-related knowledge scores and the studied sociodemographic characteristics revealed statistically significant differences in age, gender, education, marital status, residence, working, and socioeconomic standard. A good attitude was reported by the majority (515, 80.6%) of participants. The majority (493, 77.2%) were occasional and frequent plastic users and the practice scores were significantly associated with age, education, residence, and socioeconomic standard. Higher educational level, gender (women), and rural residence were predictors of good participants knowledge, while lower socioeconomic status and urban residence were predictors of bad participants practice in a multivariate logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION: The observed unsatisfactory knowledge and practice scores vs. the high attitude indicates a knowledge gap that can help direct future improvements. We call for public awareness programs about safe plastic use and the related health hazards of plastic chemicals. We also stress upon the urgent need for a collaboration between health authorities and the plastic and food industry to guarantee that information about proper plastic use is conveyed to consumers. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-09-28 /pmc/articles/PMC10569476/ /pubmed/37841707 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1146800 Text en Copyright © 2023 Hassan, El Desouky, Salem, Abdelsabour, Abdelmoneim, Elsaieed and Ali. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Hassan, Fatma Mohamed
El Desouky, Eman D.
Salem, Marwa Rashad
Abdelsabour, Motaze Adel
Abdelmoneim, Mostafa Alaa
Elsaieed, Mohamed Mahmoud
Ali, Mona Mohamed
Plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of Egyptians
title Plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of Egyptians
title_full Plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of Egyptians
title_fullStr Plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of Egyptians
title_full_unstemmed Plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of Egyptians
title_short Plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of Egyptians
title_sort plastic use for food and drinks and related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among a sample of egyptians
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10569476/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37841707
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1146800
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