Evaluation of Environmental Health Indicators of Halva and Tahini Production Centers in Ardakan, Yazd

Introduction: food safety and health should be considered at all stages from production to consumption. inappropriate sanitary status of the food production, distribution and shopping centers cause food-borne diseases. the aim of this study was to evaluate the environmental health indicators of halva and tahini production centers in ardakan, yazd; 2013. materials and methods: this is a descriptive, cross - sectional study. for data collection, we used a 5-part checklist, which consisted of raw materials store, production processing halls, packaging halls, product store and bathrooms. this tool was prepared according to the iranian ministry of health regulations. we have completed all the checklists throughout inspections from 16 production centers during the winter of 2013. finally, the collected data was analyzed by spss, version 18. results: generally, 75% of production centers had favorable hygienic status, while 25% of them were slightly favorable. according to the obtained results, hygienic status of production centers had relatively favorable conditions and only in january and february, 31.3% and 18.8% of the processing halls and 12.5% of the product stores were in a very favorable hygienic status. the results showed that 62.5% of production centers had favorable status in raw materials store, 66.66% in production processing hall, 20.83% in packaging hall, 60.41% in product store and 37.5% in bathrooms. statistical analysis showed that there is no significant relationship between hygienic status and production rate (p=0.411). conclusion: the results showed that halva and tahini production centers of ardakan in terms of environmental health indicators had slightly favorable to favorable status . therefore, the situations should be improved to satisfactory status.