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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gulbanu Kaptan, Dr Arnout Fischer, Professor Lynn FrewerORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
Important determinants of risk perceptions associated with foods are the extent to which the potential hazards are perceived to have technological or naturally occurring origins, together with the acute versus chronic dimension in which the potential hazard is presented (acute or chronic). This study presents a case study analysis based on an extensive literature review to examininge how these hazard characteristics affect people’s risk and benefit perceptions, and associated attitudes and behaviors. The cases include E.coli incidences (outbreaks linked to fresh spinach and fenugreek sprouts), contamination of fish by environmental pollutants, (organochlorine contaminants in farmed salmon), radioactive contamination of food following a nuclear accident (the Fukushima accident in Japan), and GM salmon destined for the human food chain. The analysis of the cases over the acute versus chronic dimension suggests that longitudinal quantification of the relationship between risk perceptions and impacts is important for both acute and chronic food safety, but this has infrequently been applied to chronic hazards. Technologies applied to food production tend to potentially be associated with higher levels of risk perception, linked to perceptions that the risk is unnatural. However, for some risks (e.g. for example those involving biological irreversibility) moral or ethical concerns may be more important determinants of consumer responses than risk or benefit perceptions. (Lack of) trust has been highlighted in all of the cases suggesting transparent and honest risk-benefit communications following the occurrence of a food safety incident. Implications for optimizing associated risk communication strategies, additional research linking risk perception and other quantitative measures, including comparisons in time and space, are suggested.
Author(s): Kaptan G, Fischer ARH, Frewer LJ
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Risk Research
Year: 2018
Volume: 21
Issue: 8
Pages: 996-1018
Online publication date: 31/01/2017
Acceptance date: 13/12/2016
Date deposited: 14/12/2016
ISSN (print): 1366-9877
ISSN (electronic): 1466-4461
Publisher: Routledge
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2017.1281330
DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2017.1281330
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