Consumers’ intention to participate in food safety risk communication: A model integrating protection motivation theory and the theory of reasoned action

Abstract

Food safety risk communication aims to enhance stakeholders' understanding of the assessment and management of food safety hazards and allows people to make informed judgements about food production and consumption. To analyse consumers' intention to participate in food safety risk communication, this paper develops an integrated model that combines the protection motivation theory with the reasoned action theory. Structural equation modeling with the partial least squares technique is used to test the theoretical model. Data were collected from 676 valid online survey responses from randomly selected consumers in northeast China. The results indicated that attitude is a key factor mediating the relationships between perceived severity, response efficacy, self-efficacy, and consumers’ intention to participate in food risk communication.