“The majority of studies have suggested that consumer food safety practices are inadequate and increase the potential risk for foodborne disease”

International incidence of foodborne disease has caused considerable concern in recent years and it is believed that food-handling malpractices implemented in domestic food preparation contribute significantly to such incidence. Thus, concern for consumer food safety has prompted widespread international research evaluating food safety and domestic food-handling behaviors. This review paper has provided a cumulative overview of consumer food safety studies from the past four decades, and is believed to be the first detailed review of its kind. It reports upon research that is currently important, relevant, and of interest to not only international food safety researchers, but also to public health professionals and health educators, and thus has a wide appeal. The review brings together an extensive amount of the literature and provides a wealth of consumer food safety information that can be used for future research as well as for the development of future food safety education initiatives to reduce foodborne disease incidence.

The paper provides a comprehensive review of consumer food safety studies and is useful to others as it presents information detailing similarities and disparities of consumer knowledge, attitudes, intentions, self-reported practices, and actual behavior. Furthermore, reviewed studies have been evaluated in terms of research methods used for data collection, the study size, country of origin, and the year of study completed. In addition, international incidence of foodborne disease originating from consumer homes’ has been provided.

The importance of adequate consumer food-handling practices has been increasingly acknowledged in recent years. As a consequence of this, an increasing number of research studies detailing consumer food safety behavior in the home have been undertaken. The majority of studies have suggested that consumer food safety practices are inadequate and increase the potential risk for foodborne disease. One of the most notable conclusions extrapolated from this review is that consumer knowledge, attitudes and self-reported practices determined in interviews and questionnaires provide a more optimistic portrayal of consumer food safety than observed behaviors. However, determination of knowledge, attitudes, intentions, and self-reported practices summarized in this review can be used to understand why consumers implement some food safety behaviors and not others. Thus, these summaries can be valuable when used in the developmental planning of risk-based communication strategies to improve food-handling behaviors.

After graduating from Cardiff University, UK, as a Home Economist, I started my employment as a researcher in the Food Research and Consultancy Unit (FRCU) at UWIC where I attained my Ph.D. My research within the FRCU for the past nine years has examined a variety of aspects of consumer food safety including a quantitative risk-based observational assessment and microbiological analysis of risk-related food-handling behaviors. In addition, the determination of attitudes and perceptions of microbiological risks associated with unsafe food-handling actions and food safety education has facilitated the development of targeted risk communication strategies based on the social marketing approach. The effectiveness of such strategies implemented in selected communities has been evaluated using direct observation. The FRCU has adopted a multidisciplinary approach to food safety and food microbiology research, making it one of the leading UK centers for applied food safety research. Dissemination of this work throughout the world has gained an international reputation for the FRCU. Consumer food safety research in the FRCU is ongoing and my current research involves identification and evaluation of domestic food safety education in the UK.