Investigating Fish Contamination Scenario and Community Willingness to Adopt Consumption Advice Proposing an Advisory Model

: Consumption advice to ensure the health and safety of fish consumers remains urgent to handle the 21 ever-increasing panic over heavy metal toxicity. Moreover, studies of fish consumption rarely focus on the 22 perceptions and awareness of consumers. Considering this, the present study examines the knowledge and 23 perceptions of the risks and benefits of fish consumption among consumers of Laguna de Bay to explore their 24 willingness to follow fish consumption advice. The seasonal variation in selected types of heavy metal 25 contamination in two commercially important fish species, tilapia and mudfish, was analysed and a 26 vulnerability map based on the risk‒benefit ratio was produced for Laguna de Bay. Furthermore, this study 27 formulates fish consumption advice f or consumers of fish in the area. Primary data on consumers’ perceptions 28 were collected through a questionnaire, whereas heavy metal contamination data were compiled from the best 29 available literature. We concluded that people’s willingness to adopt consum ption advice is mostly dependent 30 on their existing level of fish consumption. Moreover, consumption advice is formulated to indicate 31 restrictions on consumption for the areas identified as vulnerable due to contamination. This empirical study 32 can serve as a model for the future development of fish consumption advice in the region. 33


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Fish are considered an important source of essential proteins, lipids, vitamins, minerals and unsaturated

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Therefore, in this study, the knowledge and perceptions of consumers of fish in the Laguna Lake area of 93 the Philippines were examined to understand people's willingness to adopt fish consumption advice. The study 94 also explored the contamination scenario of two commercially important fish species, tilapia (Oreochromis 95 niloticus) and mudfish (Ophicephalus striatus), collected from Laguna Lake, conducting a risk-benefit analysis 96 and producing a vulnerability map. Furthermore, safe consumption guidelines have been formulated for both 97 species, which can serve as a model for future fish consumption advice in the region.

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Of these 14 villages using random sampling method three nearest villages of University of the Philippines Los

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Baños have been selected for this study namely, Batong Malake, Anos and Tuntungin-Putho. A total 100 106 respondents participated in the survey and the sample size was calculated according to the following equation Where, n is the sample size, N is the size of the population, No is the sample size of a defined population, 112 d is the error term that is estimated at 5%, p is the estimated frequency of the sample with size n, while t is the 113 figure obtained from the t-student's table. With a 95% confidence level, the overall sample size was calculated 114 to be 90 participants, with an additional 10 individuals questioned to rule out anomalous values.

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The survey aimed to assess consumers' perceptions of fish consumption through open-ended questions on 117 topics such as the risks and benefits of eating fish; their knowledge of fish contamination and water pollution; 118 their fish consumption rate; the quality of fish; information needed for safe consumption, etc. Moreover, 119 demographic information (age, occupation, education level, income, household size and number of children) 120 was collected during the survey.

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The information on heavy metal contamination in fish utilised in the study was based on the best available

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The formulation of consumption advice was carried out through the estimation of the safe dietary intake 170 (CRlim) and maximum allowable fish consumption rate (CRmm), using the below equations (Gbogbo et al.

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The number of acceptable fish meals per month (CRmm), is calculated according to the formula below:

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However, about 26% of participants had an education below secondary level. In terms of occupation, 191 government/nongovernment workers comprised the highest proportion in terms of profession, comprising 192 35.6% of the total respondents; 24.4% were students, 23.3% were fishermen/farmers, and 16.7% were 193 businessmen. In terms of income distribution, this study found that 43.3% of the respondents were middle-194 income individuals, followed by upper-middle (28.9%), lower (24.4%) and higher-income (3.3%) participants.

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A factor analysis was carried out to reduce the large number of surveyed socioeconomic variables into 196 fewer factors, extracting the maximum common variance from all variables and merging them into a common 197 score that will be used for further analysis of multiple regressions.

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In the attribute "sociodemographic", four items were identified: age, occupation, education and number of 202 children. Factor 2 shows that all the variables were directly related to the consumption behaviour of participants,

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including the amount of fish consumption, participants' concern about contamination in the fish they eat, and  218 Multivariate findings indicated that the level of fish consumption was the best predictor of consumers' 219 willingness to adopt the consumption guidelines (P = 0.000), followed by respondents' perceived knowledge 220 about fish contamination (P = 0.003) and respondents' self-reported age (P = 0.044), as presented in Table 2.

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where μ1 and μ2 are the population means for the dry and wet seasons, respectively. 244 FP = portion of fish one has to consume to obtain the recommended Refa (g/day) C = content of EFA (EPA+DHA) in the target fish (mg/g).

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In the current study, the EFA value of tilapia was 1.03 mg/g (Al-Souti and Claereboudt 2014) and, for

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The

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It is well known that vulnerability mapping helps to target vulnerable hotspots and recommend appropriate In this study, we assessed the maximum number of servings of tilapia and mudfish from Laguna Lake that 284 can be safely consumed over a month. Tables 5 and Table 6 show the maximum number of times the fish can

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For tilapia, the lowest consumption limit was for the areas of the central West Bay and central bay at three 292 meals per month for adults due to the As contamination during the dry season. Similarly, the lowest 293 consumption limit was advised for children and women of childbearing age in the central West Bay. In general,

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As and Pb were found to be the elements responsible for the consumption restrictions on tilapia collected from

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Consumers with children in their household were more likely to seek out food safety information as well as to

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However, a slightly unexpected finding was observed in another study (Tucker et al. 2006), in which 324 respondents with children in their household perceived lower levels of risk than respondents with no children.

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Education plays a major role in consuming fish because it positively impacts the belief that fish is 326 important for health and influences the fish consumption frequency. This opinion has also been addressed by a 327 previous study (Myrland et al. 2000). On the other hand, some studies confirmed that there was no difference 328 in fish consumption based on educational status, and highly educated consumers thought of fish as a "difficult-

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This study identified perceptions of fish consumption risks and benefits as important factors for the fish-

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The present study found that most of the heavy metal concentration in the collected fish samples did not tilapia, were higher than 1 in all of the study locations. In the case of mudfish, the mean HQefa for Hg and Pb 394 was calculated as 17.91 and 11.67, respectively, which indicated deleterious health effects for the intake of such 395 fish in order to obtain the recommended portion of EFA.

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The cluster analysis and vulnerability map produced in the study indicated that northern West Bay was the