Food safety education for people with diabetes and pregnant women: A positive deviance approach

• Positive deviance (PD) approach increased consumer's knowledge.
• PD lead high risk consumers to follow behavior recommendations previously ignored.
• Participants tried recommended practices modeled by people like themselves.
• Clean, Cook, Chill, Separate and Choose were addressed in the discussion.
• Participants found food safety discussions informative and compelling.

Few education programs target audiences at high-risk for foodborne illness, especially people with diabetes and pregnant women. The objective of this study is to develop a food safety education program for each using a positive deviance approach. The positive deviance focus group is a novel educational intervention that allows participants to discuss their food handling behaviors and decide to try recommended positive practices modeled by people like themselves. To fit within the educational programs offered by the collaborating institutions, three sessions were given, discussing safe handling topics: ‘Cook and Chill,’ ‘Clean and Separate,’ and ‘Choose Safe Food.’ People with diabetes (32) and pregnant women (29) participated in the study. Focus groups were audiotaped and transcribed. Participants became involved and inspired by vivid discussions and were inspired to change their behaviors to the recommended food handling practices modeled by their peers. Safe food handling practices were reinforced by take-home tasks focused on using refrigerator and cooking thermometers and using separate cutting boards. Participants were unaware of details associated with safe handling recommendations, such as the recommended temperature for cooking specific items or the temperature of the refrigerator. Results of this study indicate that positive deviance discussion module could be a promising alternative to traditional methods of food safety education.