Seafood Choices Balancing Benefits and Risks (2007) / Chapter Skim
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6 Understanding Consumer Decision Making as the Basis for the Design of Consumer Guidance
6 Understanding Consumer Decision Making as the Basis for the Design of Consumer Guidance
Pages 217-247
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From page 217... ...
The chapter then discusses reasons why consumer guidance may have weak or unintended impacts on consumer choice and what must be understood about the consumer decision-making context in order to design effective guidance. INTRODUCTION As noted in the previous chapters, there is a wide variety of guidance on seafood consumption currently available to consumers.
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. Factors influencing seafood consumption choices are similar to those for other foods (e.g., taste, convenience, or ease of preparation)
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. For example, some consumers make seafood choices based on concerns about environmental impact (see Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch [http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp]
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0 Lifestyle Psychobiological Cultural Enablers Social Behavioral Proximal Distal core of choice settings leverage points leverage points FIGURE 6-1 Framework for factors influencing healthy eating and physical activity behaviors. The schema depicts a psychobiological core composed of genetic, psychological (e.g., self-esteem, body image, disagreement with personal vulnerability or gain from choices)
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Impact of Factors Influencing Food Consumption Decisions In general, when consumers are presented with new information, e.g., balancing health benefits with risks of seafood choices, food choice behavior theories suggest that they will interpret and respond to this information in light of their existing beliefs, attitudes, and habits, and will be influenced by situational factors as much as or more than by the content of the information. For example, in a long-term, randomized controlled study involving advice to men with angina to eat more fish and vegetables, small increases in fish consumption were observed (Ness et al., 2004)
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Qualified Health Claims Labeling While the standard Nutrition Facts format informs consumers about several nutrition characteristics of seafood products, it does not list omega-3 fatty acid content. In 2004, the FDA announced the availability of a qualified health claim for reduced risk of coronary heart disease on conventional foods that contain eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)
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The health claims that will be evaluated first include the benefits of eating foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, including certain fatty fish like ocean salmon, tuna, and mackerel, for reducing the risk of heart disease. Country of Origin and Other Labeling The 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act amended the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to require retailers to inform consumers of the country of origin of wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish.
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SEAFOOD ChOICES regarding food. In 2004, the Attorney General of California joined a lawsuit filed by the Public Media Center, a nonprofit media and consumer advocacy agency in San Francisco, against the nation's three largest canned tuna companies to enforce Proposition 65, California's 1986 law requiring warnings about exposure to contaminants, such as methylmercury.
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Online Seafood Information and Advocacy There are currently several examples of online seafood consumption information and advocacy available, as illustrated in Table 6-1. For example, Oceans Alive, a nongovernmental organization (Environmental Defense Network)
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SEAFOOD ChOICES TABLE 6-1 A Sampling of Online Consumer Information and Advocacy Sites Which Include Mercury Calculators Website Organization Type of Organization/Project Input http://www. Environmental Public health and Consumer's weight ewg.org/issues/ Working environmental action (lbs)
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This trickery is responsible for a great deal of needless fear. And food-scare groups ignore Links the US EPA's the fact that health risks from mercury take an entire lifetime to "Reference Dose" and accumulate.
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. Currently, much of the interactive seafood consumption information available on the Web consists of mercury intake calculators that may include tailoring by the decision-maker's weight, sometimes gender, and the type and amount of seafood consumed (Table 6-1)
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CONSUMER DECISION MAKING AS BASIS FOR DESIGN OF GUIDANCE Output Notes/Quoted Extracts Estimated level of Because the numbers used in the mercury calculator are averages, blood mercury (µg/L) , the fish you eat may contain mercury at levels significantly higher level of blood mercury or lower than the numbers used in this calculator.
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. Summary In summary, guidance to consumers regarding the benefits and risks of seafood consumption may inform individual choices about which types of seafood and how much to consume.
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The combination of responses to and changing understanding of food consumption choice consequences can amplify the effects of risk information, which can be further amplified by the media, government, and other parties (Kasperson et al., 2003)
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The following discussion summarizes the evidence to date regarding the effects of seafood advisories, labels, point-of-purchase information, and other consumer communications. Evaluating the Effects of Previous Seafood Consumption Guidance Evaluating the impact of previous guidance on seafood purchasing behavior can be done either qualitatively or quantitatively.
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Their pessimistic scenario assumes that all adults decrease seafood consumption by 17 percent. In both the moderate and pessimistic scenarios, an overall decrease in benefits results (estimated changes in Quality Adjusted Life Years from a benefit-risk analysis)
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may influence risk perceptions more than benefit-risk information (for risks and benefits of seafood) (Knuth et al., 2003)
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As illustrated in the table, the most salient gap is insufficient evaluation of the current consumer seafood information environment (e.g., marketing research) and a lack of emphasis on benefits of seafood consumption.
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TABLE 6-2 Summary of Current Seafood Consumption Information Environment Benefit/Risk Intended Message Source Medium/Channel Audience(s) Available Evaluation Evidence Federal Mercury risks FDA, US EPA Mass media, Females of Insufficient evaluation of market impact Advisories broadcast childbearing age, infants, Suggestion of spillover effects, including and children possible stigmatization of seafood (Levy and Derby, 2000; Davidson, 2004)
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Qualified Eating foods Producers On products/menus All consumers These claims increase the perceived Health high in omega- healthfulness of functional foods (BechClaims 3 fatty acids to Larsen and Grunert, 2003; Williams, 2005) decrease risk of heart disease Web-based Nutrition Environmental Internet, interactive Internet users, Committee unaware of any evaluations.
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. For example, access to appropriate, science-based information on both the benefits and risks of seafood consumption is particularly critical for pregnant women to enable them to adhere to health guidance messages (Athearn et al., 2004)
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2. Advice to consumers from the federal government and private organizations on seafood choices to promote human health has been fragmented.
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The model developed here provides this kind of evidence-based recommendation regarding seafood consumption. Agencies should also develop alternative tools for populations with limited access to computer-based information.
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While emphasizing trade-offs may reduce the risk of spillover effects, consumer testing of messages should address the potential for spillover effects explicitly. RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendation 1: Research is needed to develop and evaluate more effective communication tools for use when conveying the health benefits and risks of seafood consumption as well as current and emerging information to the public.
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2004. The role of sport-fish consumption advisories in mercury risk communication: A 1998–1999 12-state survey of women age 18–45.
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1999. Introduction to evalua tion of interactive health communication applications.
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. FSA (Food Standards Agency)
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2003. Weighing health benefit and health risk information when consuming sport-caught fish.
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. International Eidence on Food Consumption Patterns.
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Food Policy 29:659–667. Warner M
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