TY - JOUR

T1 - Investigating heterogeneity in food risk perceptions using best-worst scaling

AU - Millman, Caroline

AU - Rigby, Dan

AU - Jones, Davey L.

N1 - This research was undertaken as part of a studentship (ES/G030782/1) funded by the Economics Social Research Council, linked to the RELU project ‘Reducing E. coli O157 Risk in Rural Communities’ (RES-229-31-0003) funded under the UK Research Councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use Programme.

PY - 2021/10/3

Y1 - 2021/10/3

N2 - The psychometric paradigm has dominated the field of empirical work analysing risk perceptions. In this paper, we use an alternative method, Best-Worst Scaling (BWS), to elicit relative risk perceptions concerning potentially unsafe domestic food behaviours. We analyse heterogeneity in those risk perceptions via estimation of latent class models. We identify 6 latent segments of differing risk perception profiles with the probability of membership of those segments differing between experts and the lay public. The BWS method provides a practical approach to assessing relative risks as the choices made by the participants and subsequent analysis have a strong theoretical basis. It does so without the influence of scale bias, the cognitive burden of ranking a large number of items or issues of aggregation of data, often associated with the more commonly used psychometric paradigm. We contend that BWS, in conjunction with latent class modelling, provides a powerful method for eliciting risk rankings and identifying differences in these rankings in the population.

AB - The psychometric paradigm has dominated the field of empirical work analysing risk perceptions. In this paper, we use an alternative method, Best-Worst Scaling (BWS), to elicit relative risk perceptions concerning potentially unsafe domestic food behaviours. We analyse heterogeneity in those risk perceptions via estimation of latent class models. We identify 6 latent segments of differing risk perception profiles with the probability of membership of those segments differing between experts and the lay public. The BWS method provides a practical approach to assessing relative risks as the choices made by the participants and subsequent analysis have a strong theoretical basis. It does so without the influence of scale bias, the cognitive burden of ranking a large number of items or issues of aggregation of data, often associated with the more commonly used psychometric paradigm. We contend that BWS, in conjunction with latent class modelling, provides a powerful method for eliciting risk rankings and identifying differences in these rankings in the population.

KW - Risk perception

KW - domestic food safety

KW - Best-Worst Scaling

KW - expert-lay differences

KW - psychometric paradigm

KW - heterogeneity

U2 - 10.1080/13669877.2020.1848902

DO - 10.1080/13669877.2020.1848902

M3 - Article

VL - 24

SP - 1288

EP - 1303

JO - Journal of Risk Research

JF - Journal of Risk Research

SN - 1366-9877

IS - 10

ER -