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Category: Project

Description: Zoonoses become more frequent and intense. As intensive animal farming amplifies the emer-gence of zoonoses, the increase in intensive animal farming poses a risk to future zoonotic out-breaks [1]. This raises the question to what extent people are aware that intensive animal farming poses a risk to zoonoses. Furthermore, if people would be (made) aware, would they be willing to take protective measures by reducing their animal food consumption? This was investigated in a representative study of 1009 Dutch citizens. We measured participants’ risk perception of inten-sive animal farming and of the way animals are treated. We measured their willingness to con-sume fewer animal products and their opinions on governments banning intensive animal farms. Additionally, participants estimated the percentage of meat they consume coming from intensive farms. The main results showed that most participants were aware that zoonoses can occur through intensive animal farming, but not where their meat comes from. The majority of partic-ipants is willing to change their animal consumption behavior if this reduces future zoonotic outbreaks.