INTRODUCTION
Gloves are often used when handling foods, on the assumption that a physical barrier will prevent the food handler from contaminating food. Early data on glove effectiveness were published in the healthcare literature. 1 , 2 These studies had limited application in food handling because of their focus on high‐quality surgical gloves, which are not used in food service or food processing sectors. Many of these healthcare studies used a “watertight test,” which may not be indicative of how gloves fare while in use. 3 Some studies have examined gloves in a foodservice setting. Bardell 4 inoculated droplets of saliva containing herpes simplex virus on the outside of latex disposable gloves and evaluated transfer to lettuce or ham; although virus could be isolated from the food in all five trials for each group, transfer was not quantified. Fendler et al. 5 used volunteers to handle ground beef containing Escherichia coli and showed that the outside of the glove was highly contaminated at the end of a 3‐h period regardless of whether gloves had been changed or hands washed. Montville et al. 6 evaluated bacterial transfer through foodservice quality gloves but did not specifically evaluate transfer by gloved hands.
Leafy green vegetables including lettuce have been broadly recognized as vehicles for foodborne pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7. Lettuce was implicated in over 31 outbreaks of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O157:H7 between 1998 and 2020. 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 Investigations of multistate outbreaks associated with lettuce have noted multiple potential contamination points from production to final consumption. 12 , 13 , 14 Evidence for contamination via agricultural water, 15 , 16 , 17 soil, 15 , 16 , 17 wild or domestic animals, 17 adjacent land use, 12 and human handling 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 have all been suggested.
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Microbial cross contamination from gloved hands has been shown to occur during hand harvesting of fresh produce, including lettuce, 19 , 20 basil, 20 peppers, 15 , 22 and tomatoes. 15 , 23 Bacterial transfer between gloves and produce may be affected by factors such as concentration or type of organism, 20 , 23 glove material, 23 , 24 presence of organic matter, 23 , 24 and environmental conditions. 15 , 23
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Produce Safety Rule 25 and Good Agricultural Practices focus on prevention of contamination of produce during pre‐ and postharvest handling. The California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement program provides best practices guidelines for lettuce and leafy greens production and harvest. 26 These include training employees to wash hands with soap and running water before donning gloves and when hands may have become contaminated, ensuring gloves are intact and sanitary, and prohibiting the use of personal gloves or taking gloves home. Although the risk of pathogen transmission can be reduced by proper glove use, gloves may still become contaminated by various soils, which may result in subsequent cross contamination during harvest. 20 , 24 , 27 While the influence of specific factors on transfer of microorganisms has been studied under laboratory conditions, this may not reflect the agricultural production environment. This study was undertaken to evaluate the impact of glove type on survival and sequential transfer of E. coli under both laboratory conditions and during simulated lettuce harvest in the field.
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