Infant food users' perceptions of safety: A web-based analysis approach

Sherman Aline; Gilles Hubert; Yoann Pitarch; Rallou Thomopoulos

doi:10.3389/frai.2023.1080950

Infant food users' perceptions of safety: A web-based analysis approach

Front Artif Intell. 2023 Feb 17:6:1080950. doi: 10.3389/frai.2023.1080950. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Sherman Aline¹, Gilles Hubert¹, Yoann Pitarch¹, Rallou Thomopoulos²

Affiliations

¹ Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), Institut National Polytechnique (INP), University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France.
² Ingénierie des Agropolymères et Technologies Emergentes (IATE), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (INRAE), Institut Agro, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France.

Abstract

This paper aims to explore consumer beliefs about health hazards in infant foods by analyzing data gathered from the web, focusing on forums for parents in the UK. After selecting a subset of posts and classifying them by topic, according to the food product discussed and the health hazard discussed, two types of analyses were performed. Pearson correlation of term-occurrences highlighted what hazard-product pairs are most prevalent. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression performed on sentiment measures generated from the texts provided significant results indicating positive or negative sentiment, objective or subjective language, and confident or unconfident modality associated with different food products and health hazards. The results allow comparison between perceptions obtained in different countries in Europe and may lead to recommendations concerning information and communication priorities.

Keywords: consumer; contaminants; modality; opinion; sentiment analysis; subjectivity; web mining.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the French Institut Carnot Cognition, by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement N°861917 and by the TRANSFORM Division of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment.