Sample Surveys of Public Perceptions and Opinion

none5The bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) saga has made painfully evident the limitations of risk communication as a one-way avenue, where information to the public about the risks they face comes after critical policy decisions have already been made. In fact, communication has even been identified as one of the key elements of what went wrong and generated the loss of trust in government discourse and in beef in Europe. This book deals with risk communication as an evolving and interactive process between decision-makers and their publics and underlines the critical importance of creating mechanisms for interaction between policy-makers and stakeholders at all stages of policy-making, in order for risk communication to be effective. The book – the result of a research project carried out in four countries (Italy, Finland, Germany, Great Britain) by an international team of researchers in 2000-2002, supported by the European Commission DG Research and led by the World Health Organization – reports on research into the strategies used by different actors to communicate about BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in four European countries between 1985 and 2000. These actors include the mass media, health information systems, and political actors. The research also assessed the way people construct their perceptions about risk, who they listen to and how they make decisions on risk avoidance. A range of qualitative and quantitative methods used to describe what was said as well as was the perspectives and framework assumptions espoused by those different actors. The research reported in this specific chapter begins by exploring the availability of survey data regarding perceptions of risk and trust in information sources relevant to BSE/CJD in the four countries. It reports on what part of the existing information is available, and on the findings of the few accessible results. It goes on to present results of secondary analysis, in which data from 11 Eurobarometer surveys in each of the four countries were acquired and re-analysed, along with an EU survey that included data on meat-purchasing behaviour by consumers. The chapter provides a useful discussion of issues such as public knowledge and awareness of food safety issues, public trust in various sources of information (including food producers and distributors, scientists, health officials, etc.) and of food consumption, especially of meat. The chapter also discusses in detail the strengths and weaknesses of survey methods as tools in public policy-making on food and related issues. Finally, it illuminates the important issue of what use is made by policy-makers of existing and easily accessible information on risk perceptions and trust in information sources.noneGasperoni G.; Draper A.; Hagenhoff V.; Rusanen M.; Rusanen T.Gasperoni G.; Draper A.; Hagenhoff V.; Rusanen M.; Rusanen T