Objective  To analyze the status and influencing factors of food safety related knowledge among citizens in China for improving health education on food safety.

  Methods  A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted among 4 575 citizens recruited with stratified multistage random sampling in 60 county/district level regions across China from December 2016 to March 2017. Univariate factor analysis and stepwise multivariate linear regression analysis were used in the study.

  Results  For the 4 408 respondents with valid information, the knowledge about food safety was at a low level, with an overall score of 9.10 ± 4.399 and the domain scores of 2.20 ± 1.066 for nutrition, 2.03 ± 1.044 for safety, 1.98 ± 1.076 for cooking, 1.58 ± 1.135 for content of food safety education, and 1.32 ± 1.180 for laws and regulations on food safety, respectively. Univariate analysis indicated that the level of knowledge about food safety differed significantly by permanent residential region, age, education, and monthly household income per capita (P < 0.05 for all). Stepwise multivariate linear regression analysis indicated that education level (|βx| = 0.080, P < 0.001) was an important factor affecting the knowledge about food safety. Multivariate linear regression-based Ridit analysis resulted in the Ridit values of 0.456, 0.503, 0.518 and 0.543 for the grade of attention on food safety education for the respondents with the academic certificate of junior high school and below, senior high/vocational school, collage/university, and master degree and above, respectively.

  Conclusion  The knowledge about food safety differs and is mainly associated positively with education background among citizens in China.