Worker Safety Systems:: Practices, Challenges, and Perceptions of Safety Climate in Public School District Foodservice Programs - Tapa blanda

The foodservice industry accounts for third highest number of reported injuries in service sectors of employment. The working foodservice environment may contribute to worker injury. School foodservice is the largest noncommercial foodservice market behind business and industry, thus large numbers of school foodservice workers may be at risk for injury. Strategies outlined in this work and used in the commercial foodservice sector, may be adapted for use in school district foodservice programs as a means of reducing worker injuries and subsequently, workers¿ compensation costs and improving the health and safety of foodservice employees. Management companies scored significantly higher than self-operated programs in relation to safety practices. Management companies indicated stronger perceptions of safety climate than respondents from self-operated programs did and management companies perceived significantly fewer challenges to safety than respondents did from self-operated programs. Foodservice directors with a college education scored higher on safety practices than foodservice directors with a high school education only.

Diane Schweitzer, PhD is Foodservice Director for the Hammond Public Schools in Hammond, Indiana. She obtained degrees from Purdue University in Nursing; Restaurant, Hotel, and Institutional Management;a Master¿s Degree from DePaul University; and her PhD in Foodservice Management from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.