Health hazards awareness and fast food habits among university community in Suleimanyah, Iraq

Most of food borne diseases occurs as a result of poor food safety knowledge of individuals who work in food processing industries and also due to people do not have enough awareness about health hazards that occur during food poisoning. In this study, an online questionnaire was prepared and sent through emails to students and lecturers at the university and a scientific institute about their knowledge of food safety and health hazard awareness. Among 233 respondents, there is a high preference toward selecting fast food as an individual’s daily meal regardless of the educational background and age with a higher significant preference among male genders. Nowadays, people have access to various sort of valuable resources through internet, that is why most people have moderately good knowledge of food safety such as washing hands and practicing food safety measures. University lecturers and students are aware of health hazards caused by contaminated food and water with pathogenic bacteria, and they can manage it by various methods of treatment once they have been experiencing the food poisoning. Most of the socio-demographic population included in the study, they are fairly unsatisfied about fast food restaurant services in the city. Therefore, continuous educational practices and advices are necessary in order to educate most of the people and healthier food options must be provided in order to replace the fast food in possible.