Forming multipliers in public health and food safety area

Abstract

This project began with an investigation about zoonosis and food hygiene related problems that some public schools wanted to work with their students. When the most important themes were selected among the questionnaires, instruction materials were developed, and seminaries with the teachers of the schools were organized. The purpose of training these teachers was to establish a link between university and the public community, improving teachers’ knowledge in order to make them disseminators of important and complete information about rabies, toxocariasis, scabiosis, leptospirosis, leishmaniosis, toxoplasmosis, food safety and responsible ownership of domestic animals. A second questionnaire was applied to evaluate the seminaries and exposition of the instruction materials. It was verified a significant change in teachers and students’ knowledge, as demonstrated in the second phase, when this material was presented in the classrooms with a questionnaire applied before and after the work. It was also possible to observe that the teachers’ most frequently asked questions were related to food safety and responsible ownership of domestic animals and the less frequently asked were related to rabies and leishmaniosis. Eight teacher’s groups of six different municipal schools and three groups of students of one municipal school were admitted to the program. The positive results and great receptivity by the schools’ teaching co-ordination proved both the necessity and the usefulness in establishing a link between university (the source of research and new knowledge) and the public community in order to solve their problems.