Purpose: The purpose of this project was to investigate barriers to compliance with safe home food preparation practices and to create and distribute narrative public service announcements (PSAs) aimed at encouraging safe food preparation practices by 18-34-year olds who cook regularly for their family and others.
Methods: Formative and summative evaluation was used to design and develop scripts and then create and assess several 30-second narrative television PSAs to improve compliance with recommended safe food preparation practices. Preliminary versions of four 30-second television PSAs were produced and tested in New York, Indiana and Missouri using psychophysiological measures including facial EMG, Skin Conductance, and Heart Rate to determine effectiveness in transmitting the target messages.
Results: Extensive evaluation resulted in four highly and more or less equally effective videos that engaged patterns of cognitive and emotional processing likely effectively communicate about safe food preparation and the risk of foodborne illness. The psychophysiological measures indicated that the selected messages effectively engaged attention. Messages that were explicit about the negative consequences of foodborne illness evoked strong emotional responses that contributed to effectiveness.
Significance: Narrative messages may overcome resistance, address non-compliance, and translate knowledge into behavior by modeling safe behaviors. The use of both traditional and state of the art evaluation to develop food safety PSAs results in effective messages that communicate important home food safety messages.