Abstract
The psychometric paradigm has dominated the field of empirical work analysing risk perceptions. In this paper, we use an alternative method, Best-Worst Scaling (BWS), to elicit relative risk perceptions concerning potentially unsafe domestic food behaviours. We analyse heterogeneity in those risk perceptions via estimation of latent class models. We identify 6 latent segments of differing risk perception profiles with the probability of membership of those segments differing between experts and the lay public. The BWS method provides a practical approach to assessing relative risks as the choices made by the participants and subsequent analysis have a strong theoretical basis. It does so without the influence of scale bias, the cognitive burden of ranking a large number of items or issues of aggregation of data, often associated with the more commonly used psychometric paradigm. We contend that BWS, in conjunction with latent class modelling, provides a powerful method for eliciting risk rankings and identifying differences in these rankings in the population.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1288-1303 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Journal of Risk Research |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 10 |
Early online date | 23 Nov 2020 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 |