While researching the health impacts of meat, a team of nutritional epidemiologists noticed that the definition of processed meat is partly unclear. With the “做个识肉一族” online survey they wanted to find out more about the public's understanding of processed meat in order to feed this back into their work and improve how they communicate their research findings with the public. They were also interested in understanding people’s attitude towards reduction of meat consumption in China.
The online survey in the Chinese language ran for five weeks from 21 December 2021 to 31 January 2022. The survey was circulated via Chinese social media (e.g. WeChat and Weibo) and reached 341 Chinese speaking adults. This survey was based on the “Don’t go bacon my heart” survey, which launched in 2020 and reached English speaking adults.
Both the English and Chinese surveys are supported by Wellcome as part of their Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) programme and the researchers involved are Maria Kakkoura (CKB-CTSU, Oxford Population Health), Huaidong Du (CKB-CTSU, Oxford Population Health), Keren Papier (CEU, Oxford Population Health), Anika Knuppel (CEU, Oxford Population Health/ Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London), Liu Xin (Xi’an Jiaotong University) and Yafang He (Xi’an Jiaotong University). Currently, the results of the “做个识肉一族” online survey are being analysed and they will be published on the CKB and LEAP websites.