Fostering safe food handling among consumers: Causal evidence on game- and video-based online interventions
Publication details
Journal : Food Control , vol. 135 , p. 1–10 , 2022
International Standard Numbers
:
Printed
:
0956-7135
Electronic
:
1873-7129
Publication type : Academic article
Links
:
DOI
:
doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.202...
ARKIV
:
hdl.handle.net/11250/2839149
Research areas
Shelf life and food safety
Consumer insight
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Kjetil Aune
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kjetil.aune@nofima.no
Summary
We design a game-based online intervention to foster awareness of food safety and risk-reducing behavior among consumers. 1087 participants, aged 20–50 years, and additional 886 participants, aged up to 89 years, from the UK and Norway were assigned to (i) a control condition with pre- and post-survey measures of food safety beliefs and behaviors with a one-week spacing, or (ii) in addition exposed to a brief information video, or (iii) in addition played an online game. Both intervention types improved food safety beliefs to a similar extent relative to control. But only the game interventions significantly improved self-reported food safety behavior, suggesting that providing information to consumers often is not sufficient to change routinized behavior. The novel insight of our study is that repeatedly applying correct behavior in the virtual environment of the online game spills over to real-world behavior. Importantly, treatment effects are not concentrated on young people, but are consistent across age groups.