How website-information about food risk varies between national food safety authorities

Carla Geijskes and Antoon Opperhuizen Office for Risk Assessment and Research, Netherlands Food and Consumer product Safety Authority Department of Toxicology and Pharmacology, NUTRIM, Maastricht University The European... [ view full abstract ]

Carla Geijskes and Antoon Opperhuizen
Office for Risk Assessment and Research, Netherlands Food and Consumer product Safety Authority
Department of Toxicology and Pharmacology, NUTRIM, Maastricht University

The European internal market allows the traffic of goods and people back and forth across borders. Risks are not limited to national borders or Europe. Actually many food related risks are relevant at a global scale because of many trade relations and the mobility of humans and animals. Communication about risks at least at a European level is required. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) offers such a platform for all European member states. In the new EFSA strategy 2017-2020 risk communication at European scale is a key element. As national food safety authorities communicate and provide information about risks using a website on the internet, the question is raised whether or not there is coherence and consistency between the various websites dealing with the same risk items. The issue of coherence addresses the question of ‘ how’ food risks are communicated. The issue of consistency addresses the question of ‘what’ is communicated on particular items. The framework for evaluation of the websites is the risk communication protocol of EFSA and modified scheme of the different phases and characteristics of risk communication identified by Leiss et al. and Fischhoff et al. The evaluation showed some level of coherence about the risk communication intention of all websites and about the way in which each authority gives information according to this intention. However, also major differences between the websites have been identified for 10 items that have been used in this evaluation. Although all authorities included in this study collaborate with EFSA, it remains also unclear whether or not information at national level was checked for consistence with the EFSA-website or websites from other partner authorities. This study further illustrates the need for joint strategy and cooperation between the authorities and EFSA on an European level, to reach an uniform, consistent and understandable way of given information about risks.