Objective A massive crisis in public confidence in beef followed the announcement that the most likely explanation for the ten cases of a new variant of CJD reported in the UK in March 1996.was exposure to BSE before the specified offals ban. The subsequent dramatic drop in beef consumption was greater and more sustained in countries with no BSE epidemic such as Belgium or Germany. Even after the ban on exports of British beef the demand for beef in Germany remained far lower then in the UK. The public reaction was in sharp contrast with the assessment of risk by some scientists and government officials who see them as overreaction not justified by the objective threat to health posed. Contrary reactions on the part of the food industry, media, farmers, government officials, consumers and scientist have led to growing cynicism and distrust of official pronouncements. These facts raised important questions on the ability to communicate about risk in the face of uncertainty, to take full account of consumers perpectives in risk communication and highlight how we may be contributing to health and food scares. While it is widely accepted that communication issues have been at the origin of the present crisis, there is great uncertainly about the factors that influence public perceptions and generated the miscommunication. Specifically there is little information on the interplay of the media public policy, and people's perceptions of risk. This hinders our ability to predict, monitor and address health and food scares. These issues will continue to be high in the public agenda as scientific uncertainty persists and countries move towards more surveillance of CJD and the debate about implementing active surveillance of BSE.We propose to carry out a comparative analysis in selected European countries to look into public perceptions of risk, trust and beheviour, and their links with media coverage, public policy initiatives and surveillance and other official communication activities on BSE and CJD, using comparable methods.The study will specifically investigate the usefulness of including indicators of public perceptions of risk as part of existing surveillance systems, and the potential for using those indicators in the early warning of food scares.Conclusions and recommendations will provide insights and practical advise to policy makers on mechanisms to incorporate consumers' perception and / or their determinants as part of surveillance systems This would be an essential tool to improve the capacity of governments to provide adequate risk communication, and to respond in time and appropriately to potential food scarcs. Fields of science social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiespublic policies Programme(s) FP4-BIOMED 2 - Specific research, technological development and demonstration programme in the field of biomedicine and health, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 26 - Coordination of research between the Member States Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION EU contribution No data Address 8,Scherfigsvej 8 2100 KOEPENHAGEN Denmark See on map Total cost No data Participants (5) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all Christian-Albrechts Universität Kiel Germany EU contribution No data Address Olshausenstrasse 40-60 24098 Kiel See on map Total cost No data London School of Economics and Political Science United Kingdom EU contribution No data Address Houghton Street WC2A 2AE London See on map Total cost No data London School of Hygiene and TropicalMedicine United Kingdom EU contribution No data Address Keppel Street WC1E 7HT London See on map Total cost No data UNIVERSITY OF KUOPIO Finland EU contribution No data Address Harjulantie 1 70211 KUOPIO See on map Total cost No data Università degli Studi di Bologna Italy EU contribution No data Address Via Toffano 2 40125 Bologna See on map Total cost No data
