Research On The Public's Willingness To Report Food Safety And Its Influencing Factors

Food safety is related to people's health as well as the social harmony and stability.All countries around the world attach great importance to it.There are quite a considerable number of food production and management enterprises and they are distributed separately in our country.Thus,it is very difficult to ensure food safety relying solely on government supervision.The current situation of our food safety is stable and improving.However,food safety problems still occur from time to time.The situation of food safety is still very serious.The Food Safety Law of the People's Republic of China implemented in 2015,clearly defines co-regulation as the best method for food safety governance.The report of 19 th CPC National Congress of the Party pointed out that " to raise the level of protection and improvement of the people's livelihood,strengthening and innovating social governance "," creating a social governance pattern of co-management and sharing ",“implementing the food safety strategy,so that people can eat at ease”.Only by motivating multiple social forces to participate in food safety governance,can we build a strong defense line for food safety.The public's power is endless.Social co-governance of food safety would lose the basic conditions and sources of strength without widespread public participation.As the direct beneficiaries of food safety and the most important stakeholders,the public should be an important part of the co-governance of food safety.Our state actively supports and encourages the public to participate in food safety governance through reporting.However,from the point of reality,the current situation of food safety reporting is still not optimistic,and local governments are faced with the problem of "bonuses cannot be paid out".How to scientifically guide the public to actively carry out food safety reporting in order to make the implementation of food safety co-governance effectively is the key to solve the food safety problem.Therefore,it is necessary to start from the reality of public's participation in food safety reporting in our country to find out the way of getting out of food safety reporting dilemma.This study comprehensively combed the current research of social co-governance of food safety and public participation as well as food safety reporting,etc.On the basis of fully defining the concepts of food safety,food safety supervision and governance,public participation,public food safety reporting and so on,this paper develops a theoretical hypothesis model based on the theory of planned behaviour.By using the structural equation model,this paper verifies and analyzes influencing factors and action paths of public food safety reporting intention under the background of food safety society co-governance.Data used in this study came from a questionnaire survey conducted in Shandong Province.Resultsrevealed that public awareness of rights protection needed to be strengthened.The complaints and reporting hotline was an important way for the public to participate in food safety governance.The intention of the public to participate in food safety reporting was generally low.Participation attitude,subjective norm,perceived behavioral control,and moral norm had significantly positive effects on public reporting intention.Among subjective norm,descriptive norm had a more significant influence on the intention to report than injunctive norm.Moreover,the characteristic factors of these variables had positive effects on the reporting intention while individual characteristic had no influence in participation intention.Therefore,the government should actively promote the publicity and improvement of existing laws as well as regulations,and more importantly,the government should give full play to the role of social elites and interpersonal relationships by selecting people of high prestige and a strong sense of responsibility as public food security information officers and training them in order to make them as examples to encourage others actively report food safety problems.The government should pay attention to reducing difficulty of public awareness of food safety reporting.On the one hand,the government should actively popularize food safety reporting methods and procedures.This measure could encourage the public to know how to report and whom to report to,and to improve public food safety reporting control.On the other hand,the government should expand innovation and effectively use the Internet and large data,simplify food safety reporting procedures,and smooth diversified reporting channels to ensure simplicity,convenience,and feasibility of public food safety reporting.The government should guide the public in forming a positive attitude towards food safety reporting.Food safety knowledge as well as food safety reporting laws and regulations should be actively popularized by mobile promotions,publicity materials,and a variety of community activities to increase public awareness of the importance of reporting on food safety and their own health,thus enhancing sense of public awareness of food safety and forming positive attitude towards food safety reporting.It is necessary to emphasize that participation in food safety reporting is a socially beneficial behavior and moral obligation for individuals to strengthen their personal view that it is morally correct to participate in food safety reporting.