China News Service, Beijing, September 7 (Reporter Sun Zifa) The latest sociological research paper published in the professional academic journal "Nature-Ecology and Evolution" under Springer Nature shows that the researchers conducted a project involving 5,000 people. The survey found that in some parts of Asia, people who have a higher self-reported awareness of the new crown pneumonia (COVID-19) epidemic may reduce their future consumption of wild animal products by up to 24%.
This finding suggests that communicating disease risks, especially those related to wildlife consumption, may have dual benefits for curbing infectious diseases and biodiversity conservation, including wildlife protection.
The paper pointed out that people around the world consume wild animals and wild animal products for traditional or cultural purposes, sometimes threatening biodiversity or causing pathogens to be uploaded from wild animals to humans.
Therefore, the conservation community wants to reduce people's demand for such products.
The corresponding author of the paper, Robin Naidoo from the University of British Columbia in Canada and his colleagues conducted a survey of 5000 people in Hong Kong, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam in March 2020. The average age of the respondents He is 39 years old and 53% of them are male.
The researchers asked the interviewees whether they themselves and anyone they knew had consumed wild animal products in the past year, whether the epidemic had changed their consumption patterns, and how likely they were to purchase wild animal products in traditional fresh markets in the future.
The author of the paper examines the respondents' self-reported knowledge and worries about the new coronary pneumonia, as well as other sociodemographic variables, to understand whether these affect people's answers to these questions.
The results show that, depending on the region, the respondents with the highest level of awareness of new coronary pneumonia may be 11-24% less likely to buy wild animal products than others.
However, there are exceptions, such as Vietnam (some respondents are more likely to increase consumption) and Myanmar (respondents indicate that the likelihood of future purchases will increase).
The author of the paper concluded that it is very complicated to reduce people's demand for wild animal products. In different countries and regions, people have various motivations and demands for consuming these products.
Their findings indicate that public education about the risks of diseases associated with wildlife consumption may be beneficial to conservation and public health.
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