Pisamai Wongsanga. Enforcement performance of the Food Act B.E.2522 of district officers in region 7 . Master's Degree(Medical and Public Health Law Administration). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2003.
Enforcement performance of the Food Act B.E.2522 of district officers in region 7
Abstract:
At present, the prevalence of enteric infections related to food consumption is rising and low quality food
has become an important public health problem. The government has implemented the Food Act B.E.2522 for
consumer protection. District and sub-districts’ public health officers and pharmacists in community hospital are
authorized people to function as officers according to the act. This research aimed to evaluate enforcement
performance of the Food Act B.E. 2522 of district officers in region 7.The objectives were to evaluate the
performance of district officers, assess level of knowledge, perception, motivation, support from the Ministry of
Public Health and determine its associations with enforcement performance of the Food Act B.E. 2522 of district
officers in region 7.The design was a descriptive study and consisted of 184 district officers in region 7.The data
were collected by using questionnaires and in-depth-interview. Questionnaires were sent by mail from 15 March –
15 June 2003.The response rate was 81.5%.
Results showed that district officers in region 7 were male (64.7%) with an average age of 39.1 years, and
married (64.0 %). Most of them received bachelor degree (76.3%). And more than half (52.0%) had working
experience from 1-4 years. 60% of them were public health officers (60%). The rest were pharmacists. Experience
in working in enforcement of performance of food act B.E 2522 was from 1-4 years (53.3%). District officers in
region 7 had overall enforcement performance, knowledge, perception, motivation and supervision at the moderate
level of 74.0%, 54.7%, 90.7%, 70.0%, and 39.3% respectively. Overall resources for the operation were in need of
improvement (86.7%). The overall motivating factors and support from the Ministry of Public Health had a
significant positive association with enforcement performance of the Food Act B.E. 2522 of district officers in
region 7 (p<0.05). The overall knowledge and perception had no association with the enforcement performance.
The significant variables of causal relationship were the achievement, work itself, method of law enforcement,
recognition, and personnel, which could explain variation of enforcement performance of the food act B.E. 2522 of
district officers in region 7 at 24.3% (R2=0.243). From the results of this study it was suggested that officers should
receive training twice a year. The Provincial Chief Medical Officer should consider the career advancement of
officers based on their enforcement performance. A provincial level workshop should be organized for competent
district level officers to exchange their knowledge and experiences.