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In the United States each year there are an estimated 76 million cases of foodborne illness resulting in more than 300,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths each year. Lost productivity is estimated at $8 billion. Foodborne illness is a major cause of preventable illness, death, and economic burden. Foodborne illness as a result of unsafe practices in home food preparation has become a major concern among food safety experts. Current home food safety messages have increased food preparation knowledge and improved some food preparation practices, but many fewer consumers perform recommended safe handling practices than know about safe food handling. This project's goal is to design scientifically accurate and informative narrative television messages to promote better home safe food preparation compliance and reduce illness and death.
NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Foodborne illness as a result of unsafe practices in home food preparation has become a major concern among food safety experts. Current home food safety messages have increased food preparation knowledge and improved some food preparation practices, but many fewer consumers perform recommended safe handling practices than know about safe food handling. This project will design scientifically accurate and informative narrative television messages to promote better home safe food preparation compliance and reduce illness and death.
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APPROACH: An earlier study identified barriers and misunderstandings that result in home food preparers not following safe home food handling guidelines. In collaboration with industry, public sector and food safety education representatives these results will be used to create narrative television public service announcements designed to address the reasons for non-compliance and to help viewers translate knowledge into behavior. The messages will then be tested using state of the art methods of evaluating the effectiveness of risk messages to determine which messages and which versions of those messages are most likely to influence behavior. The results of this testing will be used to refine a final set of television public service announcements that will be professionally produced, tested, and distributed through an established education network.