'Don't Worry, Honey: It's Cooked': Addressing Food Risk during Pregnancy on Facebook Italian Posts.

During pregnancy, women exposed to microbiological risks are more susceptible to contracting specific pathogens, which can lead to serious diseases both in the mother and the foetus. Food-borne diseases can be avoided to a large extent by following good practices of food manipulation and cooking. Safe eating behaviours are influenced by knowledge and perception of food risks and are constructed, among others, online. Pregnant women often use Web 2.0 to obtain and share pregnancy-related information as a strategy of collective coping with emotions through conversations. This paper explores how knowledge and perceptions of food risks during pregnancy are shared among users on Italian Facebook pages and groups. The corpus, including 648,399 items (i.e., posts), was analysed: (a) first, by means of the Reinert method, to verify to what extent issues concerning food risks are debated; and (b) second, through a manual content analysis, to observe how food risks are addressed in terms of contents and social sharing of emotions. The main results show that food risk is not among the most discussed topics, and the least known and debated food risks are the most widespread (e.g., campylobacteriosis). Sometimes, food risks, when addressed, were minimised or denied, and the belief to be 'less at risk' than peers for such risk (i.e., optimistic bias) was observed. The results underline the importance, for health institutions, of building a tailored communication strategy on food risks during pregnancy to promote correct food behaviours by exploiting social networks.

Biological, Chemical, and Nutritional Food Risks and Food Safety Issues From Italian Online Information Sources: Web Monitoring, Content Analysis, and Data Visualization.

BACKGROUND: With rapid evolution of the internet and web 2.0 apps, online sources have become one of the main channels for most people to seek food risk information. Thus, it would be compelling to analyze the coverage of online information sources related to biological, chemical, and nutritional food risks, and related safety issues, to understand the type of content that online readers are exposed to, possibly influencing their perceptions. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify the types of online sources that are predominantly covering this theme, and the topics that have received the most attention in terms of coverage and engagement on social media. METHODS: We performed an analysis of big data related to food risks by combining web monitoring techniques, content analysis, and data visualization of a large amount of unstructured text. Using a dictionary-based approach, a web monitoring app was instructed to automatically collect web content referring to the food risk and safety field. Data were retrieved from March 2017 to February 2018. The validated corpus (N=12,163) was subject to automatic and manual content analysis. Results were combined with descriptive statistics extracted from Web-Live and processed with Qlik Sense. RESULTS: Nutritional risks and news about outbreaks, controls, and alerts were the most widely covered topics. Thematic sources devoted major attention to nutritional topics, whereas national sources covered food risks, especially during food emergencies. Regarding engagement on social media, readers' interest was higher for nutritional topics and animal welfare. Although traditional sources still publish a great amount of content related to food risks and safety, new mediators have emerged as alternative sources for food risk information. CONCLUSIONS: This mixed methodological approach was demonstrated to be a useful means for obtaining an accurate characterization of the online discourse on food risks, and can provide insight into how the monitored sources contribute to the process of risk communication.

Food Risks on the Web: Analysis of the 2017 Fipronil Alert in the Italian Online Information Sources.

In the summer of 2017, several European Union Member States were involved in a food alert caused by the presence of fipronil pesticide residues in chicken eggs. The food alert became a major news and received wide coverage both in the mass media and on the Internet. This article describes a study that analyzed how the Italian online information sources represented the fipronil alert, using web monitoring techniques and both manual and automatic content analysis methods. The results indicate that the alert was amplified because general news media could represent the alert within the frame of a political scandal, and because different social actors exploited the case. However, online information sources correctly communicated that the risks for consumers were low, reporting mainly what was officially communicated by the Italian health authorities. The study provides empirical evidence on how the online information sources represent food risks and food alerts and offers useful indications for health authorities in charge of the public communication of food risks.

Animal assisted interventions in practice: mapping Italian providers.

Animal assisted interventions (AAI) have become increasingly popular in Western countries during the last fifty years, attracting a lot of attention both from the general public and the scientific community. In Italy, similarly to other countries, this evolution has been accompanied by the diffusion of associations delivering AAI. What is the current state of AAI in Italy? How many realities are dealing with AAI? What professionals and animals are involved? The results of the questionnaire here reported have the objective to answer these questions, outlining a snapshot of the distribution and the main features of AAI within Italian territory. According to the 208 respondents, the sector has seen a remarkable expansion over the last twenty years. AAI providers are located mainly in the North and Centre of the country, the majority of them are arranged in associations or AAI specialized centers and work mainly with dogs and equids in animal assisted activity (AAA) programs addressed to disabled people and children. The picture of the sector still appears fragmented in particular regarding team of professionals involved and their training; nonetheless, the recent set up of national guidelines by the Italian authorities has the objective of standardizing the field and defining best practices for each type of intervention.

Consumers' perceptions of food risks: A snapshot of the Italian Triveneto area.

This study investigated the food risk perceptions of people living in the Triveneto area (Northeast Italy), a territory characterized by a particular interest in the production of quality foodstuffs, to determine what aspects people associate with food risk and to understand what beliefs underlie these perceptions. Four focus groups were conducted in the major towns of the target area (N = 45). A semi-structured interview was used that focused on beliefs about food risks, the use of information and media sources in relation to food risk, and the behaviours adopted when eating outside the home. A homogeneous view of food risk emerged among the respondents, and a common definition of risky food was identified. The concept of risk was in opposition to the quality and controllability of food, which emerged as major strategies to cope with food risks. Quality was linked to freshness and local origin, whereas controllability reflected a direct (e.g., checking labels, having a relationship with the vendor, cultivating one's own vegetable garden) or indirect (e.g., control guarantees provided by suppliers and the government) means to check the safety and quality of food. Although people seemed quite informed about food risks, a common sense of impotence with regard to one's own protection prevailed, together with a fatalistic sense of incomplete control over risk. The results identified food concerns for consumers living in this specific territory and might represent a starting point for public health authorities to increase compliance with responsible behaviours for risk mitigation and to define successful food policies for this area.