Abstract: We investigate the relationship between the adoption of practices shown to reduce the risk
of aflatoxin consumption and several hypothesized protective factors—including exposure to social
and behavior change communication and beliefs about the danger and severity of consumption of
potentially contaminated foodstuffs. The study utilizes cross-sectional survey data collected from
rural heads of households in Malawi as baseline data for a U.S. Agency for International
Development-funded social and behavior change communication project, Health Communication for
Life. We hypothesized that four groups of factors would be associated with the use of practices
shown to reduce the risk of aflatoxin contamination and consumption—demographic factors,
geographic location, exposure to health communication about food safety and risks of aflatoxin
contamination, and beliefs. The exposure model and belief model found higher scores to be
associated with adopting positive food safety behaviors and in the hypothesized directions. This
indicates that exposing people to information about food safety increases their reported food safety
behaviors across production, storage, and purchasing activities. The effects of exposure to food
safety messages and beliefs about food safety persisted in our trimmed model, net of the effects of
education. This finding indicates that communication channels and exposure to social and behavior
change messaging are an effective means of influencing food safety behaviors especially in
environments where educational levels are low. Our findings may well extend to contexts beyond
579
AIMS Agriculture and Food Volume 5, Issue 4, 578–598.
our study area into other rural, agriculturally dependent, and low-education environments in southern
Africa.
Home AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS
