Accounting for Heterogeneity in Behavioral Responses to Health-Risk Information Treatments

Traditional revealed and stated preference (RP/SP) models consider a typical individual’s behavioral responses to various policy-based information treatments. For some costbenefit applications in which resource managers are concerned with responses from a representative individual, this is sufficient. However, as behavioral responses to information treatments can vary across respondents, we develop a latent class analysis to examine unobserved homogenous subgroup responses to health-risk information treatments. Results from a probabilistic model indicate that homogenous classes of consumers respond differently to the health-risk information treatments. This suggests that future policy-based research could benefit from examining potential heterogeneity in individuals’ responses to risk information treatments in order to fully understand the efficacy of treatments on behavior. Key Words: Food safety technology; health-risk information; latent class analysis; revealed preference; stated preference