Research Of Consumer Food-Handling Behaviors

Food-borne diseases are the most important issue in China's food safety governance.The frequent occurrence of this disease not only seriously threatens public health,but also causes a huge economic burden,including medical costs,labor loss,and pressure on the administrative resources of the public health department.Past studies have shown that consumer unsafe food handling behavior is an important cause of food-borne diseases.The "Healthy China 2030" plan proposed since the 18 th CPC National Congress also emphasizes the need to improve the level of food safety governance and improve the health of residents.However,the issue of food handling behavior of Chinese consumers has not received sufficient attention.The purpose of conducting research on consumer food handling behavior is to formulate effective intervention policies to improve consumer behavior,and intervention policies based on theory are better than interventions that are not based on theory.Therefore,this research focuses on the two core issues of "determinants of consumer safe food handling intentions and behaviors and their mechanism of factors" and "identification of factors leading to the intention-behavior gap in food handling",based on the health belief model and grounded theory methods,through Structural equation model test direct effects,mediation effects,and moderating effects,and conduct research on the determinants of Chinese consumers' food handling behaviors and the influence mechanism between variables,so as to form food safety intervention strategies based on theory that meet the characteristics of Chinese consumers.In addition,in order to obtain robust research results and accurately identify the relationship between variables,this article studies two specific food handling behaviors-hand washing behavior and leftovers handling behavior.First,the research creatively proposes the indirect effect of health consciousness on the intention to safety food handling and the direct effect of the cultural context variable of familyism on intention and the moderating effect of familyism on other variables to intention paths based on health belief model.Based on above,a theoretical model of factors influencing consumer safe food handling intentions has been formed.Through the development of measurement scales for key variables in the theoretical model,and strict reliability and validity evaluation of the scales,a questionnaire is formed to conduct a nationwide large-scale survey.This survey surveyed 3,606 consumers,and finally collected 2,564 valid questionnaires,including 1,307 questionnaires on hand washing behavior and 1,257 questionnaires on leftovers handling behavior.After testing and controlling the common method variation of the data,the path relationship assumed in the theoretical model was tested through direct effect analysis,indirect effect analysis and moderating effect analysis.The results show that the theoretical model has a high degree of explanatory power for consumer intention to safety food handling,explaining 67% of the hand-washing intention and 63% of the leftovers processing intention,and found that in the two behaviors,self-efficacy is the most important determinants of intention.The effect of health consciousness on intention is entirely through indirect effects,but the mediators in the two behaviors are inconsistent.The significant mediators of health consciousness and intention path in handwashing behavior is perceived severity,perceived benefits,and self-efficacy.The significant mediators of health consciousness and intention paths in leftovers processing behavior are perceived susceptibility,perceived benefits and self-efficacy.Familyism only plays a moderating role in the path relationship of leftover processing behavior,which are health consciousness and intention,perceived barriers and intention.After adding the control variable,the test result of the above path relationship is still significant.In addition,the results of this study have again confirmed that the determinants of different food handling behaviors and the mechanism between variables are inconsistent,and it is necessary to divide specific food handling behaviors for research.Second,applying grounded theory,a qualitative research method,to analyze the causes of the "intention-behavior gap" in consumer safe food handling.The specific analysis steps are as follows: first,determine whether Chinese consumers also have "intention-behavior gap",through a survey of 200 consumer safety food handling intention and behavior data,correlation analysis and path analysis methods are used to determine that Chinese consumers also have the problem of "intention-behavior gap";second,semi-structured interviews are conducted in the form of a combination of focus group discussions and personal in-depth interviews to obtain the original corpus data needed for grounded theory analysis,and the original data are analyzed through the three-level coding paradigm of open coding,axis coding and selective coding.To guide data analysis and sample selection,the principles of continuous comparison and theoretical sampling was used,and using theoretical saturation to determine the end point of model construction.In order to avoid the influence of the researcher's subjective bias on the research results,a variety of measures are adopted to ensure the reliability and validity of entire process and results.Based on the above analysis process,the“intention-situation-behavior model” of consumer safety food handling behavior was finally formed to explain the causes of the “intention-behavior gap”.The behavior path is regulated by situational factors,which are divided into two main categories: individual personality characteristics(internal situational factors)and external environmental influences(external situational factors).Individual personality characteristics include four latitudes: food safety knowledge,diligence awareness,lazy lifestyle and food handling habits,and the external environmental impact includes three dimensions: time pressure perception,facilities constraints,and familyism.Finally,the mechanism among consumer safety food handling intentions,situational factors and behaviors is clarified through empirical analysis.The research steps of this part are as follows:(1)Based on the results of previous research and grounded theory analysis,proposed the research hypothesis of the direct effect of intention on behavior and the moderating effects of situational variables on intention and behavior;(2)through strict questionnaire design produce formed the measurement scales of the variables in the hypothesis test and conducted a national sample survey.In the end,1,800 consumers were surveyed,and 1399 valid questionnaires were collected,including 665 valid questionnaires for hand washing behavior and 731 valid questionnaires for leftovers handling;(3)the structural equation model is used to analyze the direct effect and the moderating effect in the theoretical hypothesis,and the moderating effect of the latent variable is tested by the method of item packing and index pairing.The results of data analysis found that safety food handling intention has a significant positive impact on behavior,and this result is still significant under multiple model tests,but the intensity of the influence of intention on behavior differs depending on the specific food handling behavior.The moderating effects of various situational factors on intention and behavior also have significant differences in different food handling behaviors.Food safety knowledge and diligence awareness have a significant positive moderating effect on the intention and behavior path of safety leftovers handling.Facilities constraints have a significant negative moderating effect on the intention and behavioral path of safe leftovers handling.Time pressure perception has a significant negative moderating effect on the intention and behavioral path of safety handwashing.The moderating effect of lazy lifestyle,food handling habits,and familyism is not significant in the two behaviors.Based on the above analysis results,this article proposes several practical enlightenments for designing food safety intervention strategies:(1)compared with improving consumers' risk perception,the improvement of self-efficacy should be the focus of consumer food safety education;(2)the role of health consciousness in food safety education cannot be ignored;(3)although improving consumer safety food handling intention has a positive effect,food safety education also needs to focus on bridging the “intention-behavior gap”;(4)for different food handling behaviors,food safety education should adopt different strategies depending on specific behaviors.