Why Qualified Health Claims Do Not Work: A Content Analysis of Language Characteristics

Abstract

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates qualified health claims (QHCs) on food and dietary supplement labels. QHCs aim to communicate the quality and strength of scientific evidence behind the claim of a diet‐disease relationship. However, research shows that consumers understand QHCs as an indication of the overall healthfulness of a product. To understand the characteristics of QHCs and what may cause consumer confusion, a content analysis examined the language used to convey scientific evidence in 53, FDA‐enforced QHCs. The analysis revealed that 77% (n=41) of QHCs score above a 9th grade reading level. Most claims also describe the quality of evidence (n=51, 96%) (e.g. “very weak”), make reference to the consistency of evidence (n=41, 77%), while a quarter of claims (n=13) quantify the evidence (i.e. number of studies). Twenty‐five claims (47%) present the evidence before stating the diet‐disease relationship, while the remainder of QHCs present information in the reverse order (n=28, 53%). In the 53 QHCs studied, there are 36 ways in which evidence is presented, which likely contributes to consumer confusion. Regulators should consider whether reforming the language in QHCs would improve consumer understanding of these claims.