Awareness and knowledge of national fish consumption advisories on methymercuy in seafood

In 2001, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised pregnant women, nursing mothers, young children, and women who may become pregnant not to eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish. In 2004, FDA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated their advice and encouraged women to eat up to 12 ounces of fish low in mercury. The joint 2004 advisory specified that albacore tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna and women may eat up to 6 ounces of albacore tuna per week. Though several studies have evaluated consumers' awareness of the joint FDA and EPA advisories as well as different state advisories, few of these studies are nationally representative. We examined the changes in awareness and knowledge of the advisories using the pooled 2001 and 2006 FDA/FSIS Food Safety Surveys (FSS). FSS is a single-stage random-digit-dialing survey of a nationally representative sample of American consumers. Sample sizes were 4482 in 2001 and 2275 in 2006. Initial results show that there has been an increase in the consumer awareness of mercury in seafood. More consumers have heard of the advisory (69% in 2001 to 79% in 2006) and more consumers correctly reported pregnant women should be especially careful not to eat too much seafood (10% in 2001 to 25% in 2006). Race, gender, education, age and risk perceptions are significant predictors for consumer's correct knowledge of specific details of the advisory.