[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 72 (Thursday, April 14, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 20990-20992]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-8936]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Food and Drug Administration
[Docket No. FDA-2010-N-0267]
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for Office
of Management and Budget Review; Comment Request; Survey on Consumers'
Emotional and Cognitive Reactions to Food Recalls
AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing that a
proposed collection of information has been submitted to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance under the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.
DATES: Fax written comments on the collection of information by May 16,
2011.
ADDRESSES: To ensure that comments on the information collection are
received, OMB recommends that written comments be faxed to the Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB, Attn: FDA Desk Officer,
FAX: 202-395-7285, or e-mailed to [email protected]. All
comments should be identified with the OMB control number 0910-new and
``Survey on Consumers' Emotional and Cognitive Reactions to Food
Recalls.'' Also include the FDA docket number found in brackets in the
heading of this document.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Denver Presley, Office of Information
Management, Food and Drug Administration, 1350 Piccard Dr., PI50-400B,
Rockville, MD 20850, 301-796-3793.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In compliance with 44 U.S.C. 3507, FDA has
submitted the following proposed collection of information to OMB for
review and clearance.
Survey on Consumers' Emotional and Cognitive Reactions to Food
Recalls--21 U.S.C. 393(d)(2)(C) (OMB Control Number 0910-NEW)
I. Background
The proposed ``Survey on Consumers' Emotional and Cognitive
Reactions to Food Recalls'' will be conducted under a cooperative
agreement between the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition (JIFSAN) and the Center for Risk Communication Research at
the University of Maryland. JIFSAN was established in 1996 and is a
public and private partnership between FDA and the University of
Maryland. The Center for Risk Communication Research will design and
administer the study.
The proposed study will assess consumers' emotional and cognitive
recollection of certain food recalls and gauge how these recollections
affect their current perceptions about food recalls and their
inclination to adhere to future recommended food recall behaviors.
Existing data show that many consumers do not take appropriate
protective actions during a foodborne illness outbreak or food recall
(Refs. 1 and 2). For example, 41 percent of U.S. consumers say they
have never looked for any recalled product in their home (Ref. 2).
Conversely, some consumers overreact to the announcement of a foodborne
illness outbreak or food recall. In response to the 2006 fresh, bagged
spinach recall which followed a
[[Page 20991]]
multistate outbreak of Escherichia coli O157: H7 infections (Ref. 3),
18 percent of consumers said they stopped buying other bagged, fresh
produce because of the spinach recall (Ref. 1).
Research shows that emotion plays a large role in decisionmaking,
and that individuals may not be conscious of its effects on their
behavior (Ref. 4). For example, when people are angry they are likely
to place blame, take action, and want justice to be served (Ref. 5). If
a particular food recall engenders widespread anger and the anger is
coupled with behavior that is less than desirable from a food safety or
nutritional standpoint, it is possible that anger will be the lens
through which future food recall situations are viewed, thus resulting
in similar undesirable behaviors. Findings from this study will help
FDA understand the emotional response to food recalls. This will help
FDA to design more effective consumer food recall messages during and
after a recall.
FDA conducts research and educational and public information
programs relating to food safety under its broad statutory authority,
set forth in section 903(b)(2) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic
Act (the FD&C Act) (21 U.S.C. 393(b)(2)), to protect the public health
by ensuring that foods are ``safe, wholesome, sanitary, and properly
labeled,'' and in section 903(d)(2)(C), to conduct research relating to
foods, drugs, cosmetics, and devices in carrying out the FD&C Act.
FDA plans to survey U.S. consumers using a web-based panel of U.S.
households to collect information on consumers' cognitive and emotional
reaction to food recalls. The survey will query consumers on their
recollection of food recalls within the past 5 years; attitude toward
recalled foods; knowledge about particular food recalls; behavior
during the food recall; and assessment and appraisals of
susceptibility, severity, satisfaction, and self-efficacy.
The data will be collected using an online survey. A pool of 10,000
consumers from a Web-based consumer panel will be screened for
eligibility based on age (18+ years) and familiarity with recent food
recalls. One thousand of eligible consumers will be randomly selected
to participate in the survey. The results of the survey will not be
used to generate population estimates.
The estimated total hour burden of the collection of information is
354 hours (table 1 of this document). To help design and refine the
questionnaire, the Center for Risk Communication Research will conduct
cognitive interviews by screening 25 adult consumers in order to obtain
8 respondents for the cognitive interviews. Each screening is expected
to take 5 minutes (0.083 hours) and each cognitive interview is
expected to take 1 hour. The total for cognitive interview activities
is 10 hours (2 hours + 8 hours). Subsequently, we will conduct pretests
of the study questionnaire before it is administered. We expect that
100 invitations, each taking 2 minutes (0.033 hours), will need to be
sent to adult members of the online consumer panel to have 40 of them
complete a 10 minute (0.167 hours) pretest. The total for the pretest
activities is 10 hours (3 hours + 7 hours). We estimate sending 10,000
survey screeners, each taking 1 minute (0.017 hours), to adult members
of the online consumer panel to have 1,000 of them complete a 10 minute
(0.167 hours) survey. The total for the survey activities is 337 hours
(170 hours + 167 hours).
The burden estimate for this study published in the Federal
Register of June 18, 2010 (75 FR 34745), has increased from 234 hours
to 357 hours. The increase in burden hours represents the addition of
cognitive interviews to the study design and correction of a math
error.
In the Federal Register of June 18, 2010 (75 FR 34745), FDA
published a 60-day notice requesting public comment on the proposed
collection of information. FDA received two letters containing multiple
comments in response to the notice. One letter contained comments
outside the scope of the four collection of information topics on which
the notice solicits comments and, thus, will not be addressed here.
(Comment) One comment suggested that the survey should include
consumers whose pets were sickened or had died because of mycotoxins in
pet food that resulted in the 2004 pet food recall.
(Response) FDA agrees that consumers who were affected by the 2004
pet food recall should be included as survey respondents. These
consumers will be included if they are members of the online consumer
panel from which the survey sample will be drawn and they are randomly
selected from the panel. FDA does not believe that the affected
population should be target-sampled because the study focuses on human
food recalls rather than pet food recalls.
FDA estimates the burden of this collection of information as
follows:
Table 1--Estimated Annual Reporting Burden \1\
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Annual
Portion of study Number of frequency per Total annual Hours per Total
respondents response responses response hours
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Cognitive interview screener.............. 25 1 25 5/60 2
Cognitive interview....................... 8 1 8 1/60 8
Pretest screener.......................... 100 1 100 2/60 3
Pretest................................... 40 1 40 10/60 7
Screener.................................. 10,000 1 10,000 1/60 170
Survey.................................... 1,000 1 1,000 10/60 167
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Total................................ .............. .............. .............. ........... 357
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\1\ There are no capital costs or operating and maintenance costs associated with this collection of
information.
II. References
The following references have been placed on display in the
Division of Dockets Management (see ADDRESSES) and may be seen by
interested persons between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
1. Cuite, C., Condry, S., Nucci, M., and Hallman, W., ``Public
Response to the Contaminated Spinach Recall of 2006,'' Publication
number RR-0107-013. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers, the State
University of New Jersey, Food Policy Institute, 2007.
2. Hallman, W., Cuite, C., and Hooker, N., ``Consumer Responses to
Food Recalls: 2009 National Survey Report,'' Publication number RR-
0109-018. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers, the
[[Page 20992]]
State University of New Jersey, Food Policy Institute, 2009.
3. Acheson, D., ``Outbreak of Escherichia coli 0157 Infections
Associated with Fresh Spinach--United States, August-September 2006,''
2007. Available at http://first.fda.gov/cafdas/documents/Acheson_Spinach_Outbreak_2006_FDA_pres.ppt.
4. Han, S., Lerner, J.S., and Keltner, D., ``Feelings and Consumer
Decision Making: The Appraisal-Tendency Framework,'' Journal of
Consumer Psychology, 17(3), 158-168, 2007.
5. Lazurus, R.S., Emotion and Adaptation. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991.
Dated: April 8, 2011.
Leslie Kux,
Acting Assistant Commissioner for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2011-8936 Filed 4-13-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-01-P