Food Protection Trends - July/August 2017 - 249

hospitalized. Additionally, information such as suspected
foods was given to strengthen relevancy and make the
scenario more believable: "likely foods were thought to be
chicken, lettuce, ground beef, or possibly dairy products,
including ice cream." Then participants were asked to
evaluate different communication media options (e.g.,
Internet and TV) and Internet-based platform options
(e.g., social media and websites) in the process of selecting
a restaurant to visit. To compare consumers' overall
preference for each media type, a "preference score" in the
form of a weighted average was calculated. Scores were
assigned for media choices; five points were given for the
first choice, four points for the second choice, etc., finishing
with one point for the fifth choice. An average was then
determined by dividing by the number of respondents.
Content experts representing media communication,
the hospitality industry, and health inspections helped
to develop the questions and response choices. The
questionnaire was revised and finalized after two rounds
of pilot testing. Text entries were allowed to provide an
opportunity for additional responses. Upon IRB approval,
the researchers distributed the questionnaire to U.S.
participants through an online company (mTurk). This
provided access to U.S. consumers across the nation. On
average, the survey took the participants 15 minutes to

complete. A total of 405 responses were collected in January
2016 (32). If respondents were from the same IP address,
used the same mTurk worker ID, were from outside the
U.S., used a repeating mTurk code, incorrectly completed
attention check questions, or completed the questionnaire
in less than 5 minutes, they were excluded from the
analyses. After this cleaning process, a total of 370 usable
questionnaires were analyzed by use of SPSS version 23.
Not all of the respondents answered all of the questions.
RESULTS
The demographic characteristics of the participants
are summarized in Table 1 (U.S. census data is given in
parentheses). More females (58.0%) than males (41.9%)
completed usable questionnaires. Slightly more than half
(58.8%) of the participants were between the ages of 18
and 39. Possibly because of the age distribution of the
participants, more than half (58.7%) did not have children.
As for education, 47% of the participants had less than
a bachelor's degree, 35.2% had a bachelor's degree, and
17.8% had degrees higher than a bachelor's. Overall, the
respondents had more education than the U.S. population
as a whole. Participants' residential areas were similar to
those obtained from census data.

TABLE 1. Profiles of respondents (n = 370)
Characteristics

na

%b

Gender
Male
Female

118
163

41.9 (49.2)
58.0 (50.2)

Age
18 - 29
30 - 39
40 - 49
50 - 59
60 +

81
85
50
45
21

28.7 (18.9)
30.1 (17.8)
17.7 (19.3)
16.0 (18.6)
7.4 (25.3)

Household with Children
No Children
Children under 6 years old
Children 6 years old and over
Others

165
43
63
10

58.7
15.3
22.4
3.6

Characteristics

n

%

Education
Less than Bachelor's Degree
Bachelor's Degree
Higher than Bachelor's Degree

132
99
50

47.0 (70.7)
35.2 (18.9)
17.8 (10.4)

Residential Area
New England
Mid Atlantic
East North Central
West North Central
South Atlantic
East South Central
West South Central
Mountain
Pacific

10
42
50
22
63
11
29
11
37

3.6 (4.7)
15.3 (13.3)
18.2 (15.2)
8.0 (6.6)
22.9 (19.3)
4.0 (6.0)
10.5 (11.7)
4.0 (7.2)
13.5 (16.1)

Not all participants answered all of the demographic questions.
Numbers in parentheses are 2012 U.S. census data.

a

b

July/August Food Protection Trends

249
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