Food safety knowledge, attitude, and practice among elementary schoolchildren in southern Taiwan

In Taiwan, food safety courses are taught to Grade 6 schoolchildren at elementary school. However, no report discussed the relationship and these changes among knowledge, attitudes, and practices concerning food safety in Taiwan before. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the association of food safety education with a combination of knowledge, attitude, and practice, the mediating effect of attitude in the relationship between knowledge and practice, and the moderating effect of location of school and chief buyer of household foods in the model. A validated questionnaire was administered to Grade 5 and 6 schoolchildren of 25 elementary schools in the Yunlin County, Taiwan. Of 822 questionnaires, 772 (94%) were completed without missing values or invalid answers. There were 405 (52.5%) and 367 (47.5%) schoolchildren in Grade 5 and 6, respectively. The results showed that grade was significantly associated with a combination of knowledge, attitude, and practice (Wilks’ λ = 0.958, p