In what ways can PHP developers improve their coding practices to prioritize security and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information stored in databases?

To prioritize security and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information stored in databases, PHP developers can improve their coding practices by implementing prepared statements to prevent SQL injection attacks, using parameterized queries, validating and sanitizing user input, implementing proper authentication and authorization mechanisms, and encrypting sensitive data before storing it in the database.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $password);
$stmt->execute();