Adherence to safe food-handling practices and dietary patterns in cancer survivors

Background: In Chile there is a high risk profile of developing cancer which is associated, among other factors, to eating behaviors and, in this line, it is essential for cancer survivors to have access to nutritional advice that includes aproppriate food safety practices. The objective of this study is to characterize the level of adherence of cancer survivors to safe food-handling practices and dietary patterns in a Chilean National Health Survey. Methods: Secondary analysis study, conducted using the National Health Survey 2016–2017 database. The association between adherence to dietary patterns and safe food-handling practices was conducted by means of a logistic regression analisys, considering a p value of <0.05 as statistically significant. Results: 2765 participants, females, 5.8% were cancer survivors who adhered twice more to the safe food-handling practice “wash your hands with soap and water before preparing food and before eating”, and 1.5 times more to the practice “keep raw meat separate from other foods when preparing food or cooking”. In both groups, it was observed a low adherence to achieve the recommendations on healthy weight, physical activity, fruits and vegetables consumption, and alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages consumption of the WCRF/AICR. Conclusions: Partial adherence to the safe food-handling recommendations and low adherence to the WCRF/AICR recommendations were observed among cancer survivors and subjects without cancer.