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A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of food safety education interventions for consumers in developed countries

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, August 2015
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (75th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (69th percentile)

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1 policy source
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1 Facebook page

Citations

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55 Dimensions

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196 Mendeley
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Title
A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of food safety education interventions for consumers in developed countries
Published in
BMC Public Health, August 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12889-015-2171-x
Pubmed ID
Authors

Ian Young, Lisa Waddell, Shannon Harding, Judy Greig, Mariola Mascarenhas, Bhairavi Sivaramalingam, Mai T. Pham, Andrew Papadopoulos

Abstract

Foodborne illness has a large public health and economic burden worldwide, and many cases are associated with food handled and prepared at home. Educational interventions are necessary to improve consumer food safety practices and reduce the associated burden of foodborne illness. We conducted a systematic review and targeted meta-analyses to investigate the effectiveness of food safety education interventions for consumers. Relevant articles were identified through a preliminary scoping review that included: a comprehensive search in 10 bibliographic databases with verification; relevance screening of abstracts; and extraction of article characteristics. Experimental studies conducted in developed countries were prioritized for risk-of-bias assessment and data extraction. Meta-analysis was conducted on data subgroups stratified by key study design-intervention-population-outcome categories and subgroups were assessed for their quality of evidence. Meta-regression was conducted where appropriate to identify possible sources of between-trial heterogeneity. We identified 79 relevant studies: 17 randomized controlled trials (RCTs); 12 non-randomized controlled trials (NRTs); and 50 uncontrolled before-and-after studies. Several studies did not provide sufficient details on key design features (e.g. blinding), with some high risk-of-bias ratings due to incomplete outcome data and selective reporting. We identified a moderate to high confidence in results from two large RCTs investigating community- and school-based educational training interventions on behaviour outcomes in children and youth (median standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.20, range: 0.05, 0.35); in two small RCTs evaluating video and written instructional messaging on behavioural intentions in adults (SMD = 0.36, 95 % confidence interval [CI]: 0.02, 0.69); and in two NRT studies for university-based education on attitudes of students and staff (SMD = 0.26, 95 % CI: 0.10, 0.43). Uncontrolled before-and-after study outcomes were very heterogeneous and we have little confidence that the meta-analysis results reflect the true effect. Some variation in outcomes was explained in meta-regression models, including a dose effect for behaviour outcomes in RCTs. In controlled trials, food safety education interventions showed significant effects in some contexts; however, many outcomes were very heterogeneous and do not provide a strong quality of evidence to support decision-making. Future research in this area is needed using more robust experimental designs to build on interventions shown to be effective in uncontrolled before-and-after studies.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 196 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 <1%
Italy 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Unknown 193 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 34 17%
Researcher 26 13%
Student > Bachelor 20 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 19 10%
Other 13 7%
Other 38 19%
Unknown 46 23%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 33 17%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 19 10%
Nursing and Health Professions 18 9%
Social Sciences 16 8%
Psychology 11 6%
Other 49 25%
Unknown 50 26%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 March 2018.
All research outputs
#5,781,407
of 23,885,338 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#5,701
of 15,685 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#64,789
of 270,861 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#103
of 338 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,885,338 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 75th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 15,685 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 63% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 270,861 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 338 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its contemporaries.