Health Cost of Food-borne Disease among Employees in Khulna City

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine prevalence, determinants and health cost of food-borne disease among employees in Khulna City, Bangladesh. This study is a cross-sectional study in adult aged 25 or more in Khulna City. A well-structured questionnaire has been used to collect information from the respondents. This study has applied a simple random sampling method taking 144 adult employees. Descriptive Statistics, Logistic Regression and Multivariate Analysis with generalized linear model of Zero Inflated Negative Binomial and Tobit Regression model has been used trough STATA software. The prevalence of food-borne disease is higher at the age group of 30-39 (21 percent), among married (83 percent), and small families with ≤ 4 household size (67 percent). There is a significant association between facing food-borne disease and poor food handling practice. Taking averting action and taking treatment are the negative predictors of work days lost. Socioeconomic variables such as marital status and experience food poisoning are significantly associated with work days lost due to food-borne disease. Number of sick days, work days lost are associated with overall burden of food-borne disease with direct and indirect cost. These all variables are statistically significant between 1 to 10 percent levels. The health cost of poor food handling practice group is estimated US$ 3.85 whereas, for the good food handling practice is estimated US$ 2.61 respectively. This variable is statistically significant at 10 percent level. The study recommends taking averting strategy as an attribute to increase consciousness toward the negative health effect on facing food-borne disease.

Key Words: Food-borne Disease; Bangladesh, Health Cost, Averting Action, Public Health.

JEL Code: A14, I18

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