Health communication effects on food safety behaviors: A regression analysis of the determinants of food safety behaviors in health communication for life rural program districts

We investigate the relationship between the adoption of practices shown to reduce the risk of aflatoxin consumption and several hypothesized protective factors—including exposure to social and behavior change communication and beliefs about the danger and severity of consumption of potentially contaminated foodstuffs. The study utilizes cross-sectional survey data collected from rural heads of households in Malawi as baseline data for a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded social and behavior change communication project, Health Communication for Life. We hypothesized that four groups of factors would be associated with the use of practices shown to reduce the risk of aflatoxin contamination and consumption—demographic factors, geographic location, exposure to health communication about food safety and risks of aflatoxin contamination, and beliefs. The exposure model and belief model found higher scores to be associated with adopting positive food safety behaviors and in the hypothesized directions. This indicates that exposing people to information about food safety increases their reported food safety behaviors across production, storage, and purchasing activities. The effects of exposure to food safety messages and beliefs about food safety persisted in our trimmed model, net of the effects of education. This finding indicates that communication channels and exposure to social and behavior change messaging are an effective means of influencing food safety behaviors especially in environments where educational levels are low. Our findings may well extend to contexts beyond our study area into other rural, agriculturally dependent, and low-education environments in southern Africa.