3 / 20
3
BfR Consumer Monitor
|
February 2016
Introduction
As a representative consumer survey, the BfR Consumer Mon-
itor provides some important insights at 6-month intervals into
how topics from the field of consumer health protection are per-
ceived by the general public. For the work of BfR, it is of par-
ticular interest to determine if and to what extent the estimation
of the general public deviates from the scientific estimation of
health risks.
As was already the case in 2015, consumers regard climate
and environmental damage and smoking as the greatest health
risks, followed by unhealthy or poor diets and alcohol. Once
again, major differences have been established where aware-
ness of health and consumer topics is concerned. Well over half
of the respondents are aware of plant protection products in
fruit and vegetables, antimicrobial resistance and mineral oil in
body care products. There is also high awareness among the
German population for the topics of microplastics in food and
hormone-like substances in body care products. In contrast,
only a relative low number of respondents have heard anything
about lead in game meat and pyrrolizidine alkaloids in tea. De-
spite a slight increase since the last survey, the substance gly-
phosate used in plant protection products is still hardly known,
which is surprising given the current public discussion on this
substance. The same applies to the list of topics about which
consumers are concerned: antimicrobial resistance still heads
the list, while glyphosate in the food chain is in next to last place.
If you would like to find out more about the individual topics, you
will find links to more detailed information on the BfR website on
the last page of this booklet.