Does food safety perception matter to farmers' happiness？ evidence from China.

Although the determinants of individuals' happiness have been widely examined in the literature, little is known regarding whether and how food safety perception affects farmers' happiness. To fill this research gap, this paper examines the impact of food safety perception on happiness among Chinese farmers, utilizing open-access data collected through the Chinese Social Survey project in 2013, 2017 and 2021. This study focuses on Chinese farmers as the research subject, attempting to analyze the "happiness code" from the perspective of food safety, which supplements the literature on happiness and provides reference for protecting the rights of low-income groups and promoting food safety strategies in developing countries. To address sample selection bias, this paper employs the recursive bivariate ordered probit (RBOP) model and conditional mixed process (CMP) method. The results reveal that the perception of food safety exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on farmers' happiness in China. In addition, food safety perception is more important among middle-aged and elderly farmers and among those with higher education. Thus, the policy makers should continue to make up for the shortcomings of rural food safety work and extend regulatory measures to rural areas. They also need to take efforts to strengthen food safety promotion, enhance farmers' safety awareness, and safeguard farmers' "safety on the tongue".

Does public health education improve migrant workers' health status in China?-evidence from China Migrants Dynamic Survey.

This study investigates the effect of public health education (PHE) on migrant workers' health status in China, using the data collected from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey project. The analysis employs a probit model, whose results suggest that, in general, PHE has a statistically significant and positive impact on migrant workers' self-rated health status and exerts a negative impact on their incidence rate of daily diseases. We also utilize the conditional mixed process method to address the potential endogenous issue. Further analyses reveal that there are significant differences in the impacts of different modes of PHE on migrant workers' health status, among which the mode of health knowledge lectures plays the most prominent role. Nonetheless, an additional analysis indicates that in addition to PHE, other public health services, such as the establishment of health records, also have a significant effect on the promotion of migrant workers' health status. A disaggregated analysis reveals that this impact is heterogeneous among different generations, genders as well as those with different income levels. The findings shed light on the importance of promoting equal access to public health services.

Disease Outbreak, Health Scare, and Distance Decay: Evidence from HPAI Shocks in Chinese Meat Sector.

Background: During zoonotic disease shocks (ZDSs), zoonotic disease outbreaks (ZDOs) can induce public health scares (PHSs), causing meat price risks (MPRs). Nevertheless, spatial spillovers of zoonotic disease shocks in meat markets remain unclear. We explore how zoonotic disease outbreaks and public health scares locally and spatially spill over to meat price risks, and whether spatial spillovers of public health scares decay with distance. Methods: (i) We construct a long panel covering 30 provinces and 121 months, using highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) epidemics as exogenous shocks in Chinese meat sector. (ii) We decompose zoonotic disease shocks into zoonotic disease outbreaks (objective incident) and public health scares (subjective information) and examine their spillovers to meat price risks. (iii) We identify distance-decaying spatial spillovers of public health scares, by running our dynamic SAR models 147 times, from 80 km to 3000 km with 20 km as incremental value, in a setting with risk-level heterogeneity. Results: (i) Zoonotic disease outbreaks themselves only cause local and neighboring meat price risks for high-risk meat, not for low-risk or substitute meat. (ii) Public health scares exacerbate local and neighboring meat price risks for high-risk and low-risk meat, and local meat price risks for substitute meat. (iii) Spatial spillovers of public health scares are distance-decaying and U-shaped, with four spatial attenuation boundaries, and distance turning point is shorter for high-risk meat (500 km) than for low-risk meat (800 km). Conclusions: We complement the literature by arguing that health scares induced by disease outbreaks negatively spill over to meat prices, with U-shaped distance-decaying spatial effects. This suggests low interregional spatial market integration in meat products, due to distance decay of nonstandardized information and local government control effects, across provincial boundaries. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to document nonmonotonic distance decay of health scare effects on food prices, previously not found by the literature.

Food Safety Incident, Public Health Concern, and Risk Spillover Heterogeneity: Avian Influenza Shocks as Natural Experiments in China's Consumer Markets.

Background: Food safety incidents have aroused widespread public health concern, causing food price risk. However, the causal paths remain largely unexplored in previous literature. This paper sets out to identify the relations of local and spatial spillovers of food safety incidents and public health concerns to food price risk in consumer markets within a setting with heterogeneous food safety risk levels. Methods: (i) Theoretically, unlike prior work, this paper decomposes food safety risks into food safety incidents (objective incident component) and public health concern (subjective concern component). This article develops a theoretical framework of causality to capture the underlying causal pathways motivated by the theories of limited attention and two-step flow of communication. (ii) Empirically, using avian influenza shocks in China's poultry markets as natural experiments, this paper differentiates between low- and high-risk food and incidents. The article adopts dynamic spatial panel models to analyze potential nonlinearity, moderation, and mediation in the spillover of food safety risk to food price risk for a long panel of 30 provinces covering the November 2007 to November 2017 period. Results: (i) Food safety incident alone only triggers high-risk food price risk, not low-risk food price risk. (ii) Public health concern amplifies nonlinear food price risk triggered by food safety incident. (iii) High-risk incident intensifies negative pressure of public health concern on food price risk. (iv) Food safety incident indirectly affects high-risk food price risk through public health concern. Conclusions: Using a setting with heterogeneous risk levels, this paper documents that (i) food safety incident itself does not necessarily determine food price risk, whereas it is actually public health concern that directly causes nonlinear food price risk; (ii) public health concern spillover to food price risk is negatively moderated by high-risk incident, and (iii) food safety incident spillover to high-risk food price risk is mediated by public health concern. The findings complement current research by (i) elucidating the diverse impacts of food safety incident and public health concern on food price risk, which are obscure in previous literature, and (ii) highlighting that heterogeneous food and incident risk levels matter for determining food price risk spillover.

Association of Internet Use with Attitudes Toward Food Safety in China: A Cross-Sectional Study.

A growing body of research has shown that people's attitudes toward food safety is affected by their availability and accessibility to food risk information. In the digital era, the Internet has become the most important channel for information acquisition. However, empirical evidence related to the impact of Internet use on people's attitudes towards food safety is inadequate. In this study, by employing the Chinese Social Survey for 2013 and 2015, we have investigated the current situation of food safety perceptions and evaluations among Chinese residents and the association between Internet use and individuals' food safety evaluations. Empirical results indicate that there is a significant negative correlation between Internet use and people's food safety evaluation in China. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis shows that Internet use has a stronger negative correlation with food safety evaluation for those lacking rational judgment regarding Internet information. Specifically, the negative correlation between Internet use and food safety evaluations is more obvious among rural residents, young people, and less educated residents. Finally, propensity score matching (PSM) is applied to conduct a robustness check. This paper provides new evidence for studies on the relationship between Internet use and an individuals' food safety cognition, as well as additional policy enlightenment for food safety risk management in the digital age.