Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Towards Safety and Health Risks Among Food Manufacturing Workers in Malaysia
Keywords:
Knowledge, Attitude, practice, Health, RisksAbstract
Introduction:
Food manufacturing in Malaysia exposes workers to numerous potential hazards and health risks throughout the work process. This study aimed to determine the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) towards safety and health risks among food manufacturing workers and to examine the relationship between these domains.
Methodology:
A cross-sectional study was performed involving 80 workers from three food manufacturing factories in Negeri Sembilan. KAP was assessed through a validated questionnaire adapted from a previous study.
Result:
All workers (100%) demonstrated a positive attitude, 98.7% show good practice, and 93.8% exhibit a good level of knowledge towards safety and health risks. The correlation study showed significant positive correlations between gender and attitude, and between education level and attitude, indicating that these sociodemographic factors influence safety attitudes. Work experience is significantly associated with knowledge, suggesting that work experience enhances knowledge. The study also reveals weak positive correlations among knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) regarding safety and health risk, but a significant correlation is observed between knowledge and practice.
Conclusion:
These findings suggest that fostering practical knowledge is essential for ensuring safe work behaviors. Prioritizing hands-on safety training can help bridge the gap between theoretical attitude and daily operational safety, ultimately reducing occupational health risks among food manufacturing workers.
References
DOSH. OCCUPATIONAL ACCIDENT STATISTICS BY SECTOR JANUARY- OCTOBER 2023. 2023.
Heng pei pei, yusoff hanizah mohd, hod rozita, ja’afar mohd hasni. The Influence of Work Environmental Risk Factors on Fatigue in The Construction Industry: A Review of Literature. Int J Public Health Res 2023;13.
Lees MJ, Johnstone MC. Implementing safety features of Industry 4.0 without compromising safety culture. IFAC-PapersOnLine 2021;54:680–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IFACOL.2021.10.530.
Zhenjing G, Chupradit S, Ku KY, Nassani AA, Haffar M. Impact of Employees’ Workplace Environment on Employees’ Performance: A Multi-Mediation Model. Front Public Health 2022;10:890400. https://doi.org/10.3389/FPUBH.2022.890400.
Mohd Ishanuddin N, AHZJ, Sukadarin EH, Abdul Aziz H, Zakaria J. An Investigation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) on Safety Climate at Workplace in Manufacturing Industry. Journal of Occupational Safety and Health 2019;16.
Bustamam NM, Che Choh NF, Shaari J, Muda R. FACTORS AFFECTING THE PERFORMANCE OF EMPLOYEE IN WORKPLACE. International Journal of Modern Trends in Social Sciences 2020;3:69–79. https://doi.org/10.35631/ijmtss.311005.
Atatsi EA, Stoffers J, Kil A. Factors affecting employee performance: a systematic literature review. Journal of Advances in Management Research 2019;16:329–51. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAMR-06-2018-0052.
Lee MT, Raschke RL. Understanding employee motivation and organizational performance: Arguments for a set-theoretic approach. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge 2016;1:162–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JIK.2016.01.004.
Krejcie R V. Determining Sample Size For Research Activities. Educ Psychol Meas 1970;30:607–10.
Mohamed Z, Nazhari M, Nawi M, Hamzah NA, Ghafar NA. Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Towards Safety and Health Risks Among Vocational College Students in Kelantan, Malaysia. vol. 17. 2021.
Akalu Y, Ayelign B, Molla MD. Knowledge, attitude and practice towards covid-19 among chronic disease patients at addis zemen hospital, Northwest Ethiopia. Infect Drug Resist 2020;13:1949–60. https://doi.org/10.2147/IDR.S258736.
Schwatka N V., Rosecrance JC. Safety climate and safety behaviors in the construction industry: The importance of co-workers commitment to safety. Work 2016;54:401–13. https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-162341.
Khoshakhlagh AH, Malakoutikhah M, Park J, Kodnoueieh MD, Boroujeni ZR, Bahrami M, et al. Assessing personal protective equipment usage and its correlation with knowledge, attitudes, performance, and safety culture among workers in small and medium-sized enterprises. BMC Public Health 2024;24:1987. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19517-3.
Aziz SFA, Osman F. Does compulsory training improve occupational safety and health implementation? The case of Malaysian. Saf Sci 2019;111:205–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.SSCI.2018.07.012.
Wang Z, Jiang Z, Blackman A. Linking emotional intelligence to safety performance: The roles of situational awareness and safety training. J Safety Res 2021;78:210–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JSR.2021.06.005.
Safety Incident Reporting – Why it’s so Important n.d. https://www.laboursolutions.com.au/blog/2021/07/the-importance-of-incident-reporting?source=bing.com (accessed August 22, 2024).
Alzhrani WF, Shatwan IM. Food Safety Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Restaurant Food Handlers in Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia. Foods 2024, Vol 13, Page 2176 2024;13:2176. https://doi.org/10.3390/FOODS13142176.
Aurice Wekoye S, Moturi N, Makindi SM. Knowledge and Attitudes on Practices of Occupational Safety and Health in the Informal Non-food Manufacturing Sector in Kampala City, Uganda. Journal of Applied Science and Technology 2019;36:1–12. https://doi.org/10.9734/CJAST/2019/v36i630266.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Nur Shahida Murad, Wan Zaiton Wan Sulaiman, Nor Ashikin Sopian, Nurud Suria Suhaimi, Indah Lutfiya
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
IJPHR applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to articles and other works we publish. If you submit your paper for publication by IJPHR, you agree to have the CC BY license applied to your work. Under this Open Access license, you as the author agree that anyone can reuse your article in whole or part for any purpose, for free, even for commercial purposes. Anyone may copy, distribute, or reuse the content as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This facilitates freedom in re-use and also ensures that IJPHR content can be mined without barriers for the needs of research.
