Consumers' knowledge about climate change

Several studies have unveiled various misconceptions about climate change that the public holds, for instance, confusion about climate change and ozone depletion. However, so far, there has been no uniform and standardized way to measure climate-related knowledge, which complicates comparisons between different countries or samples. To develop an extensive knowledge scale, we therefore examined the Swiss public's understanding of climate change in a mail survey and related this scale to attitudes toward climate change. We thereby aimed to consider a broad range of climate-related knowledge, namely physical knowledge about CO2 and the greenhouse effect, knowledge about climate change and its causes, knowledge about the expected consequences of climate change, and action-related knowledge. The questionnaire included items of different degrees of difficulty, ranging from knowledge that is covered by newspapers to experts' knowledge. Our findings indicate that people still hold several misconceptions, although people's knowledge related to CO2 seems to have increased compared to previous studies. Of all knowledge subscales, knowledge about climate change and causes was most strongly related to attitudes toward climate chang

Un mundo en transformación: afrontando riesgos ambientales, sociales y económicos

‘At a time when disaster potential is on the increase, the coping mechanisms of many societies appear to have become less effective. In parallel with a rise in hazard potential, vulnerability has increased […]. Given these recent challenges, the world is in urgent need of organizing a concerted effort to deal with systemic risks’ (Renn, 2008, p. 62). Today’s complex and systemic nature of risks has increasingly dissipated the traditional boundaries between risk assessment, risk perception and social coping mechanisms (Renn, 2008). Individuals and societies are now faced with multiple risks in their everyday lives, that although being different in nature — environmental, social, economic, … — may demand integrated individual and social responses to cope with them. In accordance, changes in one dimension (e.g., environmental) may determine changes in other dimensions (e.g., social, economic) and associated risks can emerge. However, the effect of these changes goes beyond a simple additive effect of each of them. Given that changes occur in a system, a risk that emerges in one dimension may pose a threat or a challenge to the entire system and may interact with processes that may take place at other dimensions, motivating responses in the form of individual and social coping

The role of health-related, motivational and sociodemographic aspects in predicting food label use: a comprehensive study

Abstract Objective Previous studies focused on a limited number of determinants of food label use. We therefore tested a comprehensive model of food label use consisting of sociodemographic, health-related and motivating variables. These three predictor groups were chosen based on the previous literature and completed with new predictors not yet examined in a comprehensive study of frequency of label use. Design We sent questionnaires to a random sample of households in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Setting The respondents filled in the questionnaire at home and returned it by mail. Subjects We analysed the data of 1162 filled-in questionnaires (response rate = 38 %). Of the respondents, 637 were women (55 %), and their mean age was 53·54 (sd 15·68) years. Results Health-related variables were the most important group of predictors of label use, followed by motivating factors and sociodemographic variables. Placing importance on health, healthy eating and nutritional value of food, perceived vulnerability for diet-related diseases, nutrition knowledge, numeracy and gender were positively associated with frequency of food label use whereas shopping habits and seeing eating as something positive were negative predictors of frequency of label use. Conclusions People's health consciousness should be raised in order to increase the frequency of food label use. Furthermore, it should be stressed that reading labels and keeping a healthy diet do not contradict ‘good eating', and that both of these aspects can be combined with the help of food label

Health motivation and product design determine consumers' visual attention to nutrition information on food products

Abstract Objective In the present study we investigated consumers' visual attention to nutrition information on food products using an indirect instrument, an eye tracker. In addition, we looked at whether people with a health motivation focus on nutrition information on food products more than people with a taste motivation. Design Respondents were instructed to choose one of five cereals for either the kindergarten (health motivation) or the student cafeteria (taste motivation). The eye tracker measured their visual attention during this task. Then respondents completed a short questionnaire. Setting Laboratory of the ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Subjects Videos and questionnaires from thirty-two students (seventeen males; mean age 24·91 years) were analysed. Results Respondents with a health motivation viewed the nutrition information on the food products for longer and more often than respondents with a taste motivation. Health motivation also seemed to stimulate deeper processing of the nutrition information. The student cafeteria group focused primarily on the other information and did this for longer and more often than the health motivation group. Additionally, the package design affected participants' nutrition information search. Conclusions Two factors appear to influence whether people pay attention to nutrition information on food products: their motivation and the product's design. If the package design does not sufficiently facilitate the localization of nutrition information, health motivation can stimulate consumers to look for nutrition information so that they may make a more deliberate food choic

Consumers' knowledge about climate change

ISSN:0165-0009ISSN:1573-148

Potential and Challenges of Community-Based Surveillance in Animal Health: A Pilot Study Among Equine Owners in Switzerland

Animal owners' potential to observe and report clinical signs, as the persons with the closest contact to their animals, is an often neglected source of information in surveillance. Allowing community members other than health care professionals, such as animal owners, to report health events can contribute to close current surveillance gaps and enhance early detection. In the present study, we tested a community-based surveillance (CBS) approach in the equine community in Switzerland. We aimed at revealing the attitudes and intentions of equine owners toward reporting clinical signs by making use of an online questionnaire. We further set up and operated an online CBS tool, named Equi-Commun. Finally, we investigated potential reasons for the lack of its use by applying qualitative telephone interviews. The majority of the respondents of the online questionnaire (65.5%, 707/1,078) answered that they could see themselves reporting clinical observations of their equine. The multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that French-speaking equine owners and those belonging to the positive attitude cluster are more likely to report to a CBS tool. Equi-Commun operated between October 2018 and December 2019 yet received only four reports. With the addition of qualitative interviews, we identified three critical, interlinked issues that may have led to the non-use of Equi-Commun within the Swiss equine community: (1) for successfully implementing CBS, the need for surveillance within the community of interest must be given; (2) the respective population under surveillance, here the equine, needs to show enough clinical cases for owners to be able to maintain the memory of an existing tool and its possible use; and (3) targeted and high effort communication of the system is key for its success. While CBS relying only on lay animal owners, complementary to existing surveillance systems, could potentially provide a good proxy of timely surveillance data, it is questionable whether the added value of generated surveillance knowledge is in balance with efforts necessary to implement a successful system. With this study, we showcased both the potential and challenges of CBS in animal health, as this may be of relevance and guidance for future initiatives

Assigning defined daily doses animal: a European multi-country experience for antimicrobial products authorized for usage in pigs

Objectives To establish a consensus defined daily dose animal (DDDA) for each active substance (AS) and administration route for porcine veterinary antimicrobial products authorized in four European countries, thus allowing cross-country quantification and comparison of antimicrobial usage data. Methods All veterinary antimicrobial products authorized for porcine use in Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden were listed for each administration route. First, separate DDDAs for each product were defined based on the recommended dosing for the main indication. Second, a consensus DDDA was established by taking the mean of the DDDAs for each product within a certain category of AS plus administration route. Results One-hundred-and-fifty-nine, 240, 281 and 50 antimicrobial products were licensed in Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden, respectively, in February 2013. Large variations were observed for dosage and treatment duration recommendations between products and between countries for the same ASs. Only 6.8% of feed/water and 29.4% of parenteral AS groups had the same recommended dosage in the four countries. Conclusions This study presents a consensus DDDA list for use in the quantification and comparison of antimicrobial consumption. Four major recommendations have been formulated: (i) urgent need for harmonization of authorization and recommended summary of product characteristics (SPC) dosages; (ii) expand the developed preliminary DDDA list to include all authorized veterinary medicinal products in all EU member states and for all (food-producing) animal species; (iii) improved accessibility of country-specific SPC data would be preferable; and (iv) statement of the ‘long-acting' duration of a product in the SP

Understanding the Underlying Psychosocial Determinants of Safe Food Handling among Consumers to Mitigate the Transmission Risk of Antimicrobial-Resistant Bacteria

In this study, we aimed to explore the psychosocial factors related to consumers’ safe food-handling behaviors to reduce the transmission risk of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria through food products. To this end, we investigated the extent to which the variables of the health action process approach (HAPA) and subjective norms can predict safe food handling by consumers. Data were collected from a representative sample of consumers belonging to the German-speaking part of Switzerland by administering a self-reporting questionnaire. The results showed that risk perception, self-efficacy, and positive outcome expectancy (i.e., the motivational phase of HAPA) were significant predictors of the intentions to handle food in a safe manner (see graphical abstract below). Additionally, in the volitional phase of HAPA, intention was found to be a significant predictor of safe food-handling behaviors. Contrary to expectations based on HAPA, action planning did not mediate the intention–behavior relationship. Only a small part of the variance in behavior was explained by coping planning and action control. The findings confirmed that the motivational phase of HAPA may be useful for determining safe food handling

Health motivation and product design determine consumers' visual attention to nutrition information on food products

ISSN:1368-9800ISSN:1475-272