Consumer Research

This page indexes research reports related to FSIS' food safety education programs and consumer behavior.

Meal Preparation Experiment Related to Not-Ready-To-Eat Frozen Foods

The third iteration of FSIS’ meal preparation observational studies examined participants’ use of a food thermometer to check the doneness of raw stuffed chicken breasts prepared from frozen and also examined the effectiveness of a related educational intervention about the importance of using a food thermometer to check the doneness of not-ready-to-eat (NRTE) frozen foods.

Observational Study Executive Summary

Web-based Survey on Food Safety Behaviors

The first iteration of FSIS’ web-based survey of U.S. adults collected information on a variety of topics, including consumer use and satisfaction with the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline, awareness of and response to food recalls, awareness of and understanding of foodborne illness outbreaks, and food safety behaviors related to grilling and serving food buffet style.

Web Survey Executive Summary

Meal Preparation Experiment Related to Poultry Washing

FSIS and its research partners conducted meal preparation studies to evaluate consumer food handling behaviors in a test kitchen. This report describes the results of the second iteration of the meal preparation experiment that examined consumers’ washing of poultry when preparing a meal of chicken thighs.

Executive Summary

Meal Preparation Experiment Related to Thermometer Use

FSIS and its research partners conducted meal preparation studies to evaluate consumer food handling behaviors in a test kitchen. This initial report is on the first phase of a multi-year study that also includes focus groups and web surveys. This report describes the results of the first iteration of the meal preparation study that examined consumers’ use of food thermometers when cooking ground turkey patties.

Executive Summary
An Observational Study of Thermometer Use by Consumers When Preparing Ground Turkey Patties (Jul 1, 2020; Journal of Food Protection, Volume 83, Issue 7.): The results of this research were published in this article in the Journal of Food Protection.

Food Safety Consumer Research Literature Review Report

A systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on consumer-focused public health campaigns. This research provides insight into consumers’ diverse food safety needs, along with the messaging and accompanying materials needed to improve consumers’ food safety behavior.