Japanese public perceptions of food - Related hazards

In this study the authors conducted a survey in 2003 with two aims: to map out the Japanese general public's perceptions of food-related hazards and foodstuffs based on the psychometric paradigm and to compare the results with those of the work by Sparks and Shepherd (1994) and Fife-Schaw and Rowe (1996), who figured the risk perception maps of the UK public; and to classify the Japanese public into some clusters according to their interests and concerns about food related issues and compare the perceptions of food- related hazards among the clusters. Three thousand questionnaires were sent by mail to randomly chosen citizens residing around Tokyo, and 878 valid responses were returned ( adjusted response rate=29.5%). Ten food-related hazards and 14 kinds of risk characteristics were used to assess their perceptions of risk, and questions about their levels of interests and/or concerns about eating, nutrition, health and food safety were asked in order to categorize the respondents into clusters. The perceptions of food- related hazards of the Japanese general public were quite similar to those of the UK public. The only exceptions appeared to be the perceptions of food additives, irradiated foods and GMOs. The Japanese public relatively regarded them as more hazardous than the UK public. Perceptions of each cluster were also similar; only Cluster 1 (with low interest and low anxiety) perceived familiar ones (e. g., food additives) to be less hazardous. The results here were based on categorical data and additional studies are necessary to obtain quantitative data for further elaboration of these results.