A pilot study to evaluate the effectiveness of a social marketing-based consumer food safety initiative using observation.

A pilot study in South Wales suggested that “one-off” food safety interventions using a social marketing approach may result in short-term improvement of consumer food safety behaviours. Interventions targeting specific food safety behaviours may produce a “halo effect” upon other food safety behaviours that are known, yet not consistently implemented during domestic food preparation. Intervention effect was greater immediately after implementation of the strategy than 4-6 weeks later. Use of the risk-based scoring system and observation techniques were effective for assessing food hygiene behaviours and evaluating effectiveness of interventions. British Food Journal 2006; 108 : 753 – 770.