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Advancing Understanding of Foodborne Illnesses: Burden, Costs, and Consumer Responses

Yang, Xuerui
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5449-4224
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744746285270379

Abstract Details

2025, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Consumer Sciences.
Food-borne illnesses presented signifcant public health and fnancial chal lenges to people, healthcare systems, and the food industry. This dissertation contributed to our understanding of foodborne illnesses by estimating their economic and societal costs, examining how consumers and retailers reacted to outbreaks, and evaluating medical expenses. We adopted interdisciplinary approaches to provide pertinent information to stakeholders in the food in dustry, lawmakers, and medical professionals. In Chapter 2, I analyzed the socioeconomic costs of foodborne illnesses, focusing on the connections between pathogens and vehicles and how they impacted the economy (Yang and Scharf, 2024). Using probabilistic food attribution modeling, I estimated that up to 9.18% (90% CI: 5.81%–15.18%) of foodborne illnesses linked to identifed pathogens were attributed to leafy greens. Including illnesses from unknown sources, leafy greens accounted for up to 2.3 million (90% CI: 1.1 million–4.1 million) illnesses annually in the United States, with associated costs reaching $5.3 billion (90% CI: $4.2 billion–$8.2 billion). Key pathogens such as Norovirus, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella drove the majority of these burdens, with romaine lettuce emerg ing as a critical contributor to E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks. Chapter 3 mainly examined how consumers and retailers responded to the onion outbreaks in 2020 and 2021. When demand shifts were quantifed us ing the Heckman selection model and Google Trends (GT) data, the fndings indicated that onion purchases fell by 20.37–27.14% during outbreak peri ods. GT data, which captured the dynamics of risk perception, suggested that public awareness moderated demand reductions. In 2021, outbreaks cost around $1.346 billion, compared to $1.158 billion in 2020. States with dense populations were most afected. These results underscored the sig nifcance of unambiguous information, efcient recall procedures, and strict safety regulations, especially in locations with large population densities. In Chapter 4, I used a pathogen-oriented method to examine six signifcant Cyclospora outbreaks associated with salad from 2018 to 2022, building on the framework from Chapter 3. This chapter implemented Monte Carlo sim ulations, treatment group classifcation for outbreak phases, and improved Google Trends analysis. I also investigated the local spillover efects of out breaks on the consumer behavior of surrounding states using DMA-level GT data with a smaller scrape interval. The fndings indicated that demand de creased by 3.89% on average per week, with stronger efects during the recall phase (4.28%) compared to the pre-recall phase (3.33%). These numbers were compared to non-outbreak periods. Retail losses were around $373.67 mil lion, and demand was reduced by 3.33% in non-outbreak states that shared media markets with the afected states due to spillover efects.
Robert Scharff (Advisor)
Dean Lillard (Committee Member)
Andrew Hanks (Committee Member)
Brian Roe (Committee Member)
235 p.
Economics; Food Science; Public Health
Foodborne Illness, Food Attribution, Information Problem, Risk Perception, Consumer Response, Google Trends, Economic Costs

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Yang, X. (2025). Advancing Understanding of Foodborne Illnesses: Burden, Costs, and Consumer Responses [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744746285270379

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yang, Xuerui. Advancing Understanding of Foodborne Illnesses: Burden, Costs, and Consumer Responses. 2025. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744746285270379.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yang, Xuerui. "Advancing Understanding of Foodborne Illnesses: Burden, Costs, and Consumer Responses." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2025. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1744746285270379

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1744746285270379
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© 2025, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.
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