Pest-control products: Hazard perception, product type, and label characteristics

We inves tigatedvariablesrelated to people's perceptions of hazard for various typesof house- hold pest-control products.Seventy college-aged students, 20 oldersubjects, andfourpesticide expertsjudged26 pest-control products on haz- ard. Resul ts showed thatfumigators and taggers wereperceived as the mosthazardous followed by sprays,systems, andtraps,respectively. Although severalmisperceptions of hazardfor certainproductcategories wereevident, the judgments of the students andolderadultswere consistent with !hoseof the experts . Perceived hazardwas alsofoundto be positive ly correlated with_a number of objective characteristics of the productlabels,including the quantityof chemical ingredients, pestseffective against, numberof wordsandsentences on the label,readability, and the presence andlocation of certainstate- mentson the backlabel. Thesefindings suggest that peoplecan discriminate the hazardlevelsof different typesof pes t-controlproducts, and the presence of variouscueson the labelmayaid in this determination.