HLTH 6038 Week 8 Intervention Design Sketch Example

A Thermometer at Every Station and a Shift Lead Who Answers the Log: An Intervention Sketch for Line Cooks Built on PRECEDE's Predisposing, Enabling and Reinforcing Factors, With Every Component Traced to the Factor It Moves

Student Name

Walden University

HLTH 6038: Health Behavior Theory

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

A Thermometer at Every Station and a Shift Lead Who Answers the Log: An Intervention Sketch for Line Cooks Built on PRECEDE's Predisposing, Enabling and Reinforcing Factors, With Every Component Traced to the Factor It Moves

The Behavior and the Framework

The behavior is thermometer use by line cooks: at a composite 12-restaurant regional chain, cooks check the internal temperature of poultry, ground meat and reheated foods with a probe thermometer before plating, on every order of those items. The target temperatures come from the FDA Food Code, which sets minimum internal temperatures by food type, such as 165°F for poultry (U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA], 2022). Thermometer use is far from universal in restaurant kitchens. In a telephone survey of food service workers in the Environmental Health Specialists Network, 53% said they did not use a thermometer to check food temperatures (Green et al., 2005).

The sketch uses the PRECEDE portion of the PRECEDE-PROCEED planning model, which sorts the causes of a behavior into three classes: predisposing factors, which give a person the motivation or rationale to act, such as knowledge, attitudes and beliefs; enabling factors, which make the action possible, such as skills and resources; and reinforcing factors, which follow the action and reward or discourage it, such as feedback from others (Green & Kreuter, 2005). The design rule for this sketch is that every component must name the factor it is meant to move, with a sentence saying why, and every factor class must be addressed by at least one component.

Diagnosing the Factors

Predisposing

Cooks may not know the target temperatures for each food or may believe that experienced cooks can judge doneness by look and feel. In a study that interviewed restaurant managers and workers, certified workers had greater food safety knowledge than uncertified workers, and workers whose primary language was not English had lower knowledge scores, along with other differences by restaurant type and experience (Brown et al., 2014). A chain with a multilingual line staff and mixed certification can expect gaps in what cooks know.

Enabling

A thermometer must be within reach, working and accurate at the moment the food leaves the grill. In the chain's kitchens, one shared thermometer hangs by the walk-in cooler, and no one is assigned to check its calibration. During a rush, walking to the cooler takes time a cook does not have.

Reinforcing

What happens after a cook checks a temperature determines whether the cook checks again. At present, nothing happens: no one sees the reading, and the only feedback is a manager's complaint if tickets slow down.

The Components

Component 1: A Ten-Minute Station Huddle in Two Languages

Before service on every shift during the first two weeks, the shift lead reviews the three target temperatures for the station's foods, shows where to insert the probe and explains why color is unreliable. The huddle is given in English and Spanish, the chain's two most common kitchen languages.

Factor moved: predisposing. It addresses knowledge of targets and the belief that experience replaces measurement.

Component 2: A Calibrated Probe Thermometer Clipped at Each Station

Each cooking station gets its own digital probe thermometer in a clip on the ticket rail, with a spare at the expo window. The opening shift lead checks calibration each morning in ice water and records the result.

Factor moved: enabling. It removes the walk to the cooler and ensures the reading is accurate.

Component 3: A Temperature Line on the Ticket

Each ticket for poultry, ground meat or reheated food prints with a blank line for the temperature. The cook writes the reading before the plate goes to the window.

Factor moved: enabling and reinforcing. It prompts the check at the moment of plating and creates a record someone can see.

Component 4: A Shift Lead Who Answers the Log

At the end of each rush, the shift lead looks at the day's tickets and responds: a word of thanks for a complete log, a quick question when a line is blank or a reading is low. Once a month, the station with the most complete logs is named at the staff meeting.

Factor moved: reinforcing. It makes the behavior noticed and acknowledged, so checking temperatures is rewarded rather than invisible.

The Matrix

Every factor class is addressed. Predisposing factors rest on a single component, which reflects the diagnosis: knowledge gaps are real, but the larger barriers in these kitchens are enabling and reinforcing.

Table 1

Components Traced to PRECEDE Factor Classes

Each filled cell names what the component is meant to change; blank cells mean no claimed effect.

Why the Components Are Few and Modest

Four components is deliberate. A line cook in a rush has seconds, not minutes, and each added step competes with ticket times. The sketch avoids a long certification course, a new software system or a penalty scheme, each of which would add burden without moving a factor the diagnosis identified as most important.

How the Trace Will Be Tested

Because each component names its factor, each can be checked. The huddle should raise scores on a short knowledge quiz; the station thermometers and ticket line should raise the share of qualifying tickets with a recorded temperature; the shift lead's responses should keep that share from falling after the first month. If the ticket share rises without a change in knowledge, the enabling components are doing the work; if it rises and then falls, the reinforcing component is not.

Limits

The chain is composite, and the sketch has not been tested. Written temperatures can be falsified, so a weekly spot check by the kitchen manager is needed to confirm that logged readings match actual readings.

References

Brown, L. G., Le, B., Wong, M. R., Reimann, D., Nicholas, D., Faw, B., Davis, E., & Selman, C. A. (2014). Restaurant manager and worker food safety certification and knowledge. Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, 11(11), 835-843. https://doi.org/10.1089/fpd.2014.1787

Green, L., Selman, C., Banerjee, A., Marcus, R., Medus, C., Angulo, F. J., Radke, V., & Buchanan, S. (2005). Food service workers' self-reported food preparation practices: An EHS-Net study. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, 208(1-2), 27-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheh.2005.01.005

Green, L. W., & Kreuter, M. W. (2005). Health program planning: An educational and ecological approach (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2022). Food code 2022. https://www.fda.gov/food/retail-food-protection/fda-food-code