The Good food safety risk communication framework aims to support the work of risk communicators in governmental bodies responsible for the national food chain control. As the document presents the evolutionary stages of food safety risk communication and helps the authorities to evaluate their current status, it can be a helpful device to outline the possible ways of improvement on an institutional level. For these purposes, the framework integrates risk communication strategies and key messages, while for the assessment of the status of organisations in risk communication, a scoring system was developed (SET: Self-evaluation tool).
The framework also includes a risk communication Toolbox, providing turnkey solutions and communication materials for the most frequently observed food safety-related consumer behaviours. The toolbox offers several ready-to-use communication materials in an easy-to-understand format for risk communicators, also indicating the food safety problem, the priority of the particular risky behaviour mitigation and the corresponding research data highlights. The communication materials and recommendations in the toolbox serve a wide range of risk communication situations, considering different levels of public participation, risk perception of the population, and the human resources available in the organisation.
Besides the outputs of the SafeConsume project, several communication materials were collected from European organisations, EU projects and national-level authorities in Europe, aiming to prevent a particular risky consumer behaviour and mitigate the risk of foodborne illness in the households.
The Good Food Safety Risk Communication Framework is freely downloadable here.
