Journal of Tourism & Hospitality
Open Access

Abstract

A Study on Food Code Violations in a Food Desert

Philip Appiah Kubi* and Hamza Haji

The right to adequate food is recognized by the International convention on economic, social and cultural rights. However, access to adequate and healthy food still remains a challenge. In the United States, over 23 million people live in areas designated as food deserts, which have limited access to healthy food. Consequently, restaurants in food deserts struggle to provide affordable and healthy food options. One other challenge faced by restaurants is the adherence to food regulations. Restaurants that violate health regulations may be cited for a critical or noncritical violation. Persistent citations for critical violations could lead to a temporal or permanent shutdown which adds to the scarcity of food in food deserts. This paper studies the food code violations in Montgomery county, a food desert in Ohio. The objective is to determine whether the time sanitarians spend during an inspection, the public perception of services and the frequency of inspections are associated with the occurrence of a critical violation. Out of 3,482 citations in 2017, it was observed that the number of inspections does not significantly impact the occurrence of a critical violation. However, the duration of the inspection was a significant factor in predicting the occurrence of critical violations. Thus, from resource utilization point of view, a public health department with limited number of health inspectors must focus on spending adequate time during each inspection as opposed to focusing on higher inspection frequencies.

Published Date: 2023-12-08; Received Date: 2019-08-24