Rutgers Spinach report: Part IV

More from the Rutgers Food Policy Institute:


AFTER THE RECALL
Many Americans were unsure whether the recall was still in effect as of November, 2006 More than six weeks after the FDA had issued its statement on September 22, 2006,advising consumers that they could be confident in eating spinach grown outside the three counties in California that had been implicated in the E. coli contamination, more than one-tenth (13%)reported incorrectly that “the spinach recall is still in effect” (7% said this was definitely “true”`and 6% said it was “likely true”) and nearly one-fifth (18%) said they were not sure. About half
(55%) said that it was definitely “false” that the spinach recall was still in effect and 14% said that it was “likely false.” This indicates that, at the time the survey was conducted, almost half of people who were aware of the spinach recall (45%) were not confident hat the recall had ended. Many Americans think they are less likely to get sick from eating spinach now than before the recall. To examine perceptions of the threat of contracting a foodborne illness, respondents were asked
to rate the likelihood of becoming infected from eating “uncooked fresh spinach” and “a food other than spinach” using a semantic differential scale where 0 represented “not at all likely” and 10 represented “extremely likely.” As represented in Figure 4, respondents who were aware of the recall, reported their likelihood of infection from eating fresh spinach before the recall to be
relatively low (M= 2.86, SD= 2.94). Not surprisingly, respondents reported their likelihood of infection from eating fresh spinach during the recall (M= 5.09, SD= 3.24) to be significantly higher than before the recall (t(954)= -21.71, p<0.001).