Designing Environmental Messages to Discourage Red Meat Consumption: An Online Experiment

Alice Wistar, Marissa G. Hall, Maxime Bercholz and Lindsey Smith Taillie
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Alice Wistar: Program in Global Health and Health Policy, Center for Health and Wellbeing, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
Marissa G. Hall: Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
Maxime Bercholz: Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, USA
Lindsey Smith Taillie: Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: Reducing red meat consumption in high-consuming countries is critical for mitigating climate change and preventing chronic disease. This study tested the effectiveness of messages conveying the worsening or reduction of environmental harms at discouraging red meat consumption. 1078 U.S. adults viewed seven messages in an online survey highlighting the reduction or worsening of environmental harms associated with eating red meat (between-subjects factor) and rated the messages on how much they discouraged them from wanting to buy beef. Each message highlighted a different environmental harm: deforestation, climate change, water shortages, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, or environment (within-subjects factor). No statistically significant difference was found between the reduction and worsening of environmental harms conditions for most topics, though the worsening of harms frame slightly outperformed the reduction of harms frame for the ‘environment’ topic. ‘Environment’ was also the message topic that elicited the strongest response from participants overall. Latino participants, those with more than a high school degree, and those who consume beef once a week or less rated messages as more effective than non-Latino participants, those who completed high school or less, and those who consumed beef more than once a week. Future research should explore the effect of messages on behavioral outcomes.

Keywords: vegetarianism; goal framing; emphasis framing; sustainability; meat consumption; environmental behavior; health communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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