Grantee Research Project Results

2000 Progress Report: Communicating Strategies to Grocery Consumers to Reduce their Dietary Exposure to Chemical Pesticide Residues While Maintaining a Healthy Diet

EPA Grant Number: R825819
Title: Communicating Strategies to Grocery Consumers to Reduce their Dietary Exposure to Chemical Pesticide Residues While Maintaining a Healthy Diet
Investigators: Zimmerman, Donald E. , Slater, Michael , Kendall, Pat
Institution: Colorado State University
EPA Project Officer: Aja, Hayley
Project Period: January 1, 1998 through December 31, 2000
Project Period Covered by this Report: January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2001
Project Amount: $839,624
RFA: Issues in Human Health Risk Assessment (1997) RFA Text |  Recipients Lists
Research Category: Human Health

Objective:

We have designed our risk communication research to identify optimal communication strategies and tools for disseminating and educating consumers. We seek to answer the following questions:

1. What communications strategies help consumers increase their understanding of information about the risks and benefits of pesticides in foods?
2. What kinds of information do consumers find most useful and what motivates them to implement behaviors to reduce their exposure to pesticide residues on and in foods?
3. What key factors ensure the cultural acceptability of the communications to minorities and to potentially susceptible populations?
4. Does an in-store public information campaign help provide shoppers with: (1) accurate, pertinent, and useful information about pesticide residues in or on foods; (2) sound nutrition information; and (3) strategies designed to reduce exposures to chemical pesticide residues?

Progress Summary:

Web Design Experiments and Usability Assessment of EPA Web Site. We have completed the data collection for two experiments testing alternative designs for Web sites and a usability assessment of the EPA's Food and Pesticide Web Site (https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/food-and-pesticides). Preliminary data analyses suggests that readers prefer 200- and 400-pixel length lines over 600-pixel length lines for12-point text, and participants reported that the illustrations (still photographs and animations) enhanced the visual appeal of pages, made the pages more interesting, supported the text, and made the Web sites more enjoyable. Participants reported that the Food and Pesticides module on EPA's Web site was interesting, understandable, well-written, and straightforward.

Brochure Experiment. Based on Witte's Extended Parallel Processing model of risk communication theory, we developed a high-risk message brochure, a low-risk message brochure, and then ran an experiment comparing the low-risk and high-risk brochures to EPA's Food and Pesticides brochure, and a control. A purposeful sample of African Americans, Anglos, and Hispanics/Latinos read the brochures and answered a questionnaire (see below). Preliminary analyses suggest some versions of the brochures, in comparison to the control, had a slight, positive effect on encouraging participants to wash and scrub fresh produce, and increased their perceptions of their abilities to reduce exposure to pesticide residues. The brochures did not, in most cases, reduce shoppers' intentions to consume less fresh fruits and vegetables and the effects appear uniform across all populations.

In-Store Information Campaign/ Field Experiment. We conducted an in-store information campaign to distribute brochures to grocery shoppers in a low-income-area store and a middle-income-area store. In the produce section of each store, we placed a kiosk with a poster designed to attract grocer shoppers to our low-risk brochure and the NCI's Eat 5 Fruits and Vegetables a Day brochure, and computer programs on pesticide and foods and related topics. Prior to, during, and after the in-store information campaign, we conducted in-store personal interviews of grocery shoppers interviews at randomly assigned times and days of the week. Because few shoppers picked up the brochures during the observational/ interview times, we modified the in-store information campaign by interviewing and giving 400 shoppers, 200 in each store, a copy of the low-risk brochure. About one month after being interviewed, we conducted telephone interviews of grocery shoppers and shoppers who received the brochures. Data entry is nearly complete, and we will begin analyzing the data and writing journal articles and the report.

Future Activities:

In the next 10 months, we will complete our data analyses, and write journal articles and the final report for the grant.

Journal Articles:

No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 15 publications for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

pesticide risk, Food Quality Protection Act, risk communication, pesticides, foods, fruits, vegetables, meats, message design, kiosk design, grocery shoppers, grocery consumers, leaflet design, brochure design, focus groups, usability testing, communication science, formative evaluation, evaluation., Health, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Toxics, Susceptibility/Sensitive Population/Genetic Susceptibility, pesticides, Risk Assessments, Chemistry, Ecology, genetic susceptability, Environmental Chemistry, Children's Health, Social Science, dietary exposure, epidemeology, environmental hazard exposures, health risks, sensitive populations, public information campaign, pesticide residue, cultural acceptibility, lower income consumers, pesticide exposure, human exposure, nutritional information, grocery consumers, pesticide residues, developmental effects, outreach material, surveys, minorities, exposure, consumer behavior, toxicology, web development, environmentally caused disease, environmental toxicant, ethnicity, developmental disorders, exposure pathways, outreach and education, ethnic

Progress and Final Reports:

Original Abstract

1998 Progress Report

1999 Progress Report

Final Report