How should the health benefits of food safety programs be measured?

PURPOSE: This chapter reports estimates of consumers' preferences for plans to improve food safety. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The plans are distinguished based on whether they address the ex ante risk of food borne illness or the ex post effects of the illness. They are also distinguished based on whether they focus on a public good--reducing risk of illness for all consumers or allowing individual households to reduce their private risks of contracting a food borne pathogen. FINDINGS: Based on a National Survey conducted in 2007 using the Knowledge Network internet panel, our findings indicate consumers favor ex ante risk reductions and are willing to pay approximately $250 annually to reduce the risk of food borne illness. Moreover, they prefer private to public approaches and would not support efforts to reduce the severity of cases of illness over risk reductions. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This study is the first research that allows a comparison of survey respondents' choices between public and private mechanisms for ex ante risk reductions.

Risk perceptions, optimism, and natural hazards.

This article uses the panel survey developed for the Health and Retirement Study to evaluate whether Hurricane Andrew in 1992 altered longevity expectations of respondents who lived in Dade County, Florida, the location experiencing the majority of about 20 billion dollars of damage. Longevity expectations have been used as a proxy measure for both individual subjective risk assessments and dispositional optimism. The panel structure allows comparison of those respondents' longevity assessments when the timing of their survey responses bracket Andrew with those of individuals where it does not. After controlling for health effects, the results indicate a significant reduction in longevity expectations due to the information respondents appear to have associated with the storm.