Consumer Concerns for Safety to Cow's Milk Produced by Biotechnology in the United States

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association 2000;38(1):59-73.

인공생장호르몬을 사용하여 생산되는 우유의 안정성에 대한 미국소비자들의 관심에 관한 연구

유소이

위스콘신대학교 생활과학대학 소비자학과 졸업

Consumer Concerns for Safety to Cow's Milk Produced by Biotechnology in the United States

유소이

ABSTRACT

The purposes of this study were to determine the factors that influence consumer concerns for safety to cow's milk produced using food-related biotechnology and to find the similarity and difference among concern factors relating short-term and long-term risk perception. Telephone interviews were conducted and the data were collected from households(n=1,466) nationwide in the U.S. And the data were analyzed by probit model and LIMDEP softare package. The data demonstrated that consumers were concerned about food safety from consuming milk produced using food-related biotechnology. The concerns were found to be influenced by demographic factors(gender in short-term, gender and age in long-term) as well as psychological aspect such as outrage(heard about bGH, milk belief about naturalness, expected benefit in short-term, heard about bGH, expected benefit in long-term) and attitudinal factors(animal rights group, locus of control in short-term, animal rights group, cancer history, locus of control in long-term). The results suggest that consumers have concerns for safety to cow's milk produced by biotechnology and the most factors influencing consumer concerns were similar between short-term and long-term period, though a few factors such as cancer history, milk belief about naturalness and age were different.