Public understanding of food risk issues and food risk messages on the island of Ireland: the views of food safety experts.

摘要

Food safety experts have a key role in constructing food risk messages and their perceptions will influence how food risk issues are communicated to the public. Perceptions of food safety experts regarding public understanding of food risk issues and food risk messages were studied in Ireland. Expert views of barriers to effective food risk communication and how to improve food risk messages were also evaluated. 143 experts working in areas related to food safety completed an online questionnaire. Questionnaire and statement design was guided by the results of 4 in-depth interviews with food safety experts. Findings indicated that most experts surveyed have little confidence in the public's understanding of food risk issues, their assessment of food risks, their ability to deal with scientific information and their food safety practices. Experts were of the view that the public under-assess risks associated with some microbiological hazards and over-assess risk associated with other hazards, such as GMO and BSE. The opinion of experts with regard to GMO was not supported by previous consumer research. Experts noted that level of education and age were important determinants for the level of understanding of food risk issues and messages. Experts were of the view that early intervention via the school curriculum was the best method to improve public understanding of food risk messages in the long term. Experts also believed that the media has the ability to improve awareness and knowledge about food risk issues, but also tends to communicate information that is misleading. The majority of experts also believed they should communicate uncertainty but were not confident that the public can cope with this information. Many experts also indicated a desire for training on how to interact with the media. Results may be useful to those experts involved in the construction of food risk messages to improve their design and communication.