Identifying a knowledge gap of blueberry health benefits: The role of education, income, generation and gender

Abstract

Lower socioeconomic groups may not learn as quickly or retain as much knowledge as higher socioeconomic groups because higher socioeconomic groups often have easier access to the relevant resources. With many health benefits associated with blueberry consumption, this study examined consumers’ knowledge level of blueberry benefits, and investigated whether a knowledge gap existed among high and low socioeconomic groups and among different demographic groups. An online survey using non-probability sampling was distributed to grocery shoppers from 31 states in the United States. Post-stratification weighting of data was used to adjust the bias resulted from non-probability sampling. The respondents answered on average more than half of the questions correctly about blueberry benefits. A knowledge gap exists between those with some college education or a college degree and those with a high school degree or lower education. While respondents demonstrated acceptable knowledge of blueberry benefits, an opportunity exists to increase the awareness of the health benefits of blueberries, especially among those with lower levels of education. Future research should determine the relationship between knowledge gap and a broader range of factors such as motivation and social contacts

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