Journal of Economics and Development Studies

Partial Proportional Odds Analysis of Consumers’ Packaged Food Safety Precautionary Actions in Nsuta-Mampong, Ghana
Isaac Abunyuwah

Abstract
Food safety issues have received increased and sustained public attention and education in recent years in Ghana. With knowledge and information flow on food safety, it is expected that consumers‟ behaviour, attitudes and actions at point of purchases will match their levels of concern about food safety. The paper investigates and explains consumers‟ precautionary safety checks they undertake during purchases. Partial proportional odds model was applied in the framework of vector generalized additive models to explain how often consumers conduct precautionary checks during purchases of packaged goods. A randomly selected sample of 261 respondents from Nsuta-Mampong administrative area of Ghana was used for the study. About 32% and 27% of respondents indicated that they “always/very often” and “sometimes” conduct precautionary checks during purchases respectively. 41% “do not” engage in any precautionary food safety checks. Education, age, number of children in household, marital status, awareness and professional knowledge on food safety issues, occupation and concerns on unwholesomeness of food explained consumer‟s actions.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jeds.v8n3a4