Right so gloves are an obvious win if you have a cut on your fingers or something like that. Chefs could generally be relied on to use them in that situation anyway, for their own protection. There are a lot of acidic salty things that hurt.
In other situations, food-borne illness mostly happens through cross contamination. Gloves would help there too if one changed them frequently, but people tend not to and it’s hard to make them do so at appropriate times. Some studies show that basically they are more likely to wash their hands when needed (likely because you feel that chicken juice on your hands) than change gloves. That’s why it’s debatable. People either wash their hands or change their gloves, and (excepting things like a cut on your fingers) whichever they do more is probably safer.
In other situations, food-borne illness mostly happens through cross contamination. Gloves would help there too if one changed them frequently, but people tend not to and it’s hard to make them do so at appropriate times. Some studies show that basically they are more likely to wash their hands when needed (likely because you feel that chicken juice on your hands) than change gloves. That’s why it’s debatable. People either wash their hands or change their gloves, and (excepting things like a cut on your fingers) whichever they do more is probably safer.