Factors affecting households’ seafood purchasing decisions in Auckland,New Zealand: an empirical analysis

This paper uses the binary choice model to identify the factors that are significantly influencing the household purchase decisions of seafood products for home consumption in Auckland, New Zealand. It is found that ‘quality’ and ‘cooking easiness’ are the main product attributes that significantly influence households’ choices of seafood in Auckland. Also, the representative household has shown a strong preference for fresh and other alternative seafood products, including processed, smoked and canned, over frozen products. Retail outlets are found to be more attractive to the household purchasing seafood for home consumption. The New Zealand seafood industry may find this baseline study useful as a guide to developing future research structure on the domestic market.     

Community-based programmes to promote use of bicycle helmets in children aged 0-14 years: a systematic review

Hospital-based research has shown that wearing a helmet reduces the risk of head injury in bicycle riders. These studies have provided the impetus for community-wide interventions to increase the numbers of cyclists who wear helmets; however, the effectiveness of such programmes is undetermined. This study employs extensive search strategies to review the scientific literature to establish the effectiveness of community-wide programmes to increase helmet use among cyclists. Thirteen community-wide intervention studies using substantive methodologies were located in 16 published papers. The community-wide interventions include mandating helmet wearing, education campaigns, distribution of free or subsidized helmets or, more frequently, combinations of all of these methods of influence. All studies reported success in influencing helmet wearing across communities. However, none of the studies reveals enough detail of the mix or techniques employed in the interventions to replicate the interventions. While it is encouraging that all of the studies showed positive results, the way forward for further implementation of helmet wearing is for adequate documentation of successful interventions.     

PRICE EFFECTS OF WOOL MARKETING INNOVATIONS: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Conflicting claims are often made about the price effects of specific wool marketing innovations. In this paper, a regression model is used to estimate the price effects of two innovations, namely, computerised selling by separation and pre-sale, dense packaging of wool. The results are indicative of aggregate price differentials between wool sold via the 'normal' system and via an innovative system for the particular wool types and sale dates analysed. The extent to which price effects may be offset by differences in selling charges is also considered. In addition, some underlying reasons for price differences, where they exist, are proposed.     

Consumer Perceptions of “Functional Food” in the United States

There is a strong trend to market products that promise improved health in the United States. Functional food is a rather new concept promoting the healthfulness of foods. Functional food manufacturers should provide motivating and trustful marketing messages. However, since the term “functional foods” lacks definition, communication to consumers is challenging and can be confusing. This study investigates how U.S. consumers understand the concept of functional foods. An online survey containing 64 questions was structured to measure awareness, consumption, and trust toward functional foods. Based on a definition provided in the survey, a clear minority (15%) of the respondents (n = 1027) stated they had heard of functional foods before the survey. Compared to the respondents who had not heard of functional foods, they more often used whole wheat cereals, vegetable juice, carrots, toast with high fibre and green tea (Chi-square –test, p < 0.001). Food and drug administration (FDA), health associations, and dieticians were the most trusted sources of information for functional food decisions with 28%, 24%, and 20% shares of the respondents, respectively. Food producers, food retailers and media together were chosen as the most trustworthy source by less than 1.5%. We concluded U.S. consumers find functional foods confusing and even unreliable. To strengthen their confidence, we suggest clear and transparent collaboration with nutrition and health specialist and product- specific marketing messages based on solid scientific documentation.     

Validity of parent's self-reported responses to home safety questions

The aim of the study was to describe the validity of parent's self-reported responses to questions on home safety practices for children of 2–4 years. A cross-sectional validation study compared parent's self-administered responses to items in the Home Injury Prevention Survey with home observations undertaken by trained researchers. The relationship between the questionnaire and observation results was assessed using percentage agreement, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and intraclass correlation coefficients. Percentage agreements ranged from 44% to 100% with 40 of the total 45 items scoring higher than 70%. Sensitivities ranged from 0% to 100%, with 27 items scoring at least 70%. Specificities also ranged from 0% to 100%, with 33 items scoring at least 70%. As such, the study identified a series of self-administered home safety questions that have sensitivities, specificities and predictive values sufficiently high to allow the information to be useful in research and injury prevention practice.