Food Protection Trends - January/February 2015 - 25

particularly regarding food safety and nutrition. Consistent with Slovic's (13) vision for a successful risk communication dialogue, the International Food Information
Council (IFIC) Foundation helps bring stakeholders
together to discuss the latest scientific developments and
research on consumer attitudes. This study describes
a strategy to bring parties together to enhance mutual
understanding and respect. The results provide a means
to understand constraints and create opportunities for
future development of educational materials that explain
the role of chemicals in the food supply.
Preliminary research and rationale
Recognizing the critical need to identify current
science and health communication chasms, IFIC
organized an expert roundtable on food and chemical risk
communication in April 2011. These experts included
representatives from academia, government agencies, and
consumer/policy institutes, representing technical and
scientific (environmental toxicology, food science, public
health) and behavioral science disciplines. In this forum, we
encouraged participants to offer their perspectives on risk
communication related to chemical contaminants associated
with food. Participants, on the basis of a 2010 IFIC
Foundation Food and Health Survey, noted that, Americans
are becoming increasingly interested in learning more about
the potential risks of chemicals in food (7). The 2010 survey
found that respondents believe that illness from bacteria
(foodborne illness) remains the most significant food health
risk. Although 84% of respondents indicated they had
questions about chemicals in their food, they acknowledged
that they do not take actions in response to this concern
(6). One possible interpretation of this finding is that
people may choose not to modify their behavior because
their level of concern is low.
Results of IFIC Foundation's past surveys suggest that
although consumers are questioning food safety more
frequently, especially with regard to potential chemical
risks; they are still reticent to take action. Survey
respondents appear to lack an understanding that nutrients
such as sugars, fats, proteins, etc., are chemicals. Consumer
"chemophobia" is central to the problem of communicating
about the risk associated with food chemicals. The members
of the expert roundtable suggested that consumers should
be informed about why certain chemicals are added to
food and at what levels chemical contaminants could
potentially cause adverse health effects (7). Roundtable
experts suggested that consumers should learn to ask, "Is
this chemical supposed to be in food or not, and what
is it doing there?" (7). To understand comprehensively
how laypersons understand these issues, it is necessary to
recognize what the word "chemical" means to the general
public. Risk perceptions, particularly about food, can be
difficult to appreciate without formal probing. Food is

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Public understanding of risks and benefits of chemicals
in food production is one area in which efforts to reach
consensus have been largely unsuccessful. Broadly
speaking, consumers can think of "chemicals" in food as
any ingredient added to foods. For some individuals, the
phrase "chemicals in food" has a negative connotation. Yet
scientists note that food itself consists of chemicals. Slovic
(14) explains that tension surrounding the idea of chemicals
in food is based, in part, on stigma. He notes that any
discussion of risk related to chemical toxicity is particularly
challenging, because chemicals have been "stigmatized by
being perceived as entailing unnaturally great risks." The
stigma associated with chemicals creates a risk perception
chasm between consumers' perceptions and scientific
evidence (14).
Health literacy, is defined as "a person's ability to
understand and act on health information" (15), is
an important component of a person's perceptions of
chemicals in food. Low health literacy, which characterizes
nearly half of all adults in the United States, correlates
with decreased compliance with treatment regimens and
increased mortality (5). Similar findings are seen globally.
Unfortunately, a growing body of evidence demonstrates
that, compared with individuals processing adequate health
literacy, those with inadequate health literacy are more
likely to exhibit impaired decision making (2). This also
suggests that those individuals with low health literacy are
more susceptible to, and less critical of, misleading and
unbalanced news, advertisements, and social media items
that make unsubstantiated claims regarding risks to health.
As mentioned previously, potential health risks associated
with chemicals in food is a topic of great interest to the
general public. As previous surveys demonstrate, chemicals
in food are an important food safety issue (35%), second
only to foodborne illness caused by bacteria (48%) (1).
For many consumers, the lack of understanding of basic
concepts of science and toxicology may easily lead to the
false perception that any type of chemical exposure presents
a significant risk to their personal health (13). This tendency
toward misconstruing evidence on highly emotional issues
has the potential to impede risk communication dialogue
with a large segment of the population (13). Ideally,
consumers in a risk communication dialogue are given
meaningful access to technical and scientific evidence.
Meaningful access occurs when two criteria are met. First,
consumers are able to interact with key decision-makers
to acquire the information necessary to make an educated
decision about a risk. Second, the technical or scientific
information that is developed to respond to consumers'
questions must be conveyed in a form that they can readily
understand (12).
Given health literacy constraints in the general population, practitioners in health, nutrition, and food science
should strive to improve the health literacy of consumers,

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Food Protection Trends - January/February 2015

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