Citation
Wistar, Alice; Hall, Marissa G.; Bercholz, Maxime; & Taillie, Lindsey Smith (2022). Designing Environmental Messages to Discourage Red Meat Consumption: An Online Experiment. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(5), 2919. PMCID: PMC8910317Abstract
Reducing red meat consumption in high-consuming countries is critical for mitigating climate change and preventing chronic disease. This study tested the effectiveness of messages conveying the worsening or reduction of environmental harms at discouraging red meat consumption. 1078 U.S. adults viewed seven messages in an online survey highlighting the reduction or worsening of environmental harms associated with eating red meat (between-subjects factor) and rated the messages on how much they discouraged them from wanting to buy beef. Each message highlighted a different environmental harm: deforestation, climate change, water shortages, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, or environment (within-subjects factor). No statistically significant difference was found between the reduction and worsening of environmental harms conditions for most topics, though the worsening of harms frame slightly outperformed the reduction of harms frame for the 'environment' topic. 'Environment' was also the message topic that elicited the strongest response from participants overall. Latino participants, those with more than a high school degree, and those who consume beef once a week or less rated messages as more effective than non-Latino participants, those who completed high school or less, and those who consumed beef more than once a week. Future research should explore the effect of messages on behavioral outcomes.URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19052919Reference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2022Journal Title
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public HealthAuthor(s)
Wistar, AliceHall, Marissa G.
Bercholz, Maxime
Taillie, Lindsey Smith
Article Type
RegularPMCID
PMC8910317Data Set/Study
CloudResearch Prime PanelsContinent/Country
United States of AmericaState
NonspecificORCiD
Bercholz - 0000-0002-3279-6408Taillie - 0000-0002-4555-2525
Hall - 0000-0002-8690-9498