Episode 40 - Science communication: Taking misinformation off the menu

[Intro]

00:37

Mariya Dokova

Welcome back to Science on the Menu. Today's topic is science communication, and joining us today is Barbara Galliani, the head of EFSA's Communication and Engagement department. Welcome, Barbara.

00:51

Barbara

Hi, Mariya. Thank you for having me.

00:53

Mariya

It's very nice to have you on Science on the Menu. Science communication, it's a very big topic. Very interesting. But before we dive in, to start a conversation, I actually want to ask you a bit of a more personal question, if I may. I know you were a physicist by training, so I was just wondering, how did you end up on the podcast about food safety?

01:15

Barbara

Oh, well, to me, it seems like a very direct link. So, I studied physics, radiation physics and particle physics. So, the effects of radionuclide and radiation, on health on the body, and one of my first jobs was in the UK and the UK Food Standards Agency as a scientific officer, looking at the discharges from nuclear power stations into the environment, very, very small. Nothing to worry about, and, I was in charge of the compilation of an annual report which was called "RIFE", radioactivity in food and the environment, and, as part of the job, there was this communication aspect of presenting the results from all the analysis and tests to the local populations that lived near the power stations. And I remember very vividly my very first time of this engagement event and I took the train from London and went to the countryside, to the West Country, present these results, and what I was expecting was a very hostile audience who'd be very critical and very scared. I had prepared, I hadn't slept the night before, went there and started my presentation, and I found an audience that was completely different from what I was expecting. It was mostly people who worked at the power station who wanted to hear about the impact on the environment, their families, people who supply the food for the canteen at the power station.

So, there was a very direct link between the local community and the work that I was presenting. There was no hostility. There was a lot of interest and a lot more knowledge than I had expected. And I remember leaving that event, traveling back to London and thinking how communication is not just about what you have to say, but it's really about the context.

03:16

Mariya

And the audience, and the type of audience. Bringing this back to EFSA and our work, how do we define our audiences, and how do we make sure that the right information reaches the right audience?

03:30

Barbara

We communicate about so many topics, and we communicate with people who have different levels of interest, scientific literacy, different perceptions about the work that we do. So, these are the three main areas that we need to be very aware of when we prepare communications or we prepare communication events, starting with science literacy, we could be talking to a very technical audience, and we've got our scientific journal for that, or to inform the audiences, we defined informed audiences, the colleagues who work maybe in other agencies or users of our opinion, so who are very familiar with the topics and with the science behind them. Or we might want to talk with lay audiences. We call them entry level. Like, people who are interested in food and nutrition, in the safety of the food that they put on the table for their families. And maybe they come to this information for the first time without specific knowledge in science.

04:38

Mariya

I think the different audiences also have different levels of perception and susceptibility to the information. I'm thinking about fake news, for example. Is this something that we consider? Like, do we do some work in myth busting proactively, or what is our role in such cases?

04:55

Barbara

Yes, we try and support our communication with a lot of research, social science research, surveys, focus groups to really identify the different types of people that we're talking to. You were talking about perceptions, and there are different factors that determine different perceptions about food. For example, the perception that something is not natural. Or a perception that something is a little bit disgusting.

And we would really need to know about this, in order to shape, and tailor our communication.

05:33

Mariya

So, the audience question is really quite complex. I would say very comprehensive, but we also have quite a lot of information out there. We have 500 outputs, I think, per year. How do we choose what exactly to communicate on?

05:48

Barbara

Well, we have a very big commitment to transparency. So, we publish everything that we do, all our work, whether it's a scientific opinion or the proceedings from a scientific colloquium or an event. Everything is published in our EFSA scientific journal. The decision then is what we translate into what we call secondary communications based on this wealth of information that we have worked on.

And, we use really a checklist that we established. So, for example, we look at the significance of the findings of our work. If there is a hint that there is something that could have a negative impact on health, we would prioritise the communication on this, and identify maybe the audiences, that would be eating more of that food that need to be informed as a matter of urgency.

We also look at the surveys, like the Eurobarometer survey, to identify the level of interest in a topic, for example, different people in different countries or from a different demographic, different age. The role in the family, whether they buy the food for the whole family, they have different types of interests. And then we use this information to decide whom to communicate the information to.

You were talking about, the myth busting and the perceptions. We also do some research and we really, really look very carefully at the newest, pieces of research that are published on how to contrast best, fake news, or inaccurate information. There are different pieces of research that indicate, it's myth busting or debunking, is really important. If there is a piece of information that is inaccurate, then we really need to be on top of it. Some research says that by doing this, you reinforce the piece of information that is incorrect. So, it's a question of judgment on when and how quickly to do that. There is some interesting research about what is called pre-bunking, which has also been defined as something like information vaccination.

So, social science research to identify topics that could be misinterpreted, miscommunicated, and then going first, I say: "You might have heard, but this is really not true. And this is the science, that really gives you the facts about the issue."

08:28

Mariya

Okay. You didn't mention it as a specific example, but while you were speaking, maybe I'm also a bit biased because we did, some very good episodes on this topic.

The thing that came to my mind was insects. We did some, episodes, as I mentioned on this, but never from the science communication angle. What is your experience with this specific topic? Does it mirror the theory that you shared with us?

08:50

Barbara

Well, we got so much media coverage on insects, and the perception is that there is something a little bit disgusting about insects.

08:57

Mariya

The yuck factor.

09:02

Barbara

The yuck factor, indeed. It was a very interesting piece of work scientifically, because we started in 2015 with the issuing and working on guidance on how to assess the safety of insects, and then around 2021, 2022, we started issuing the first, opinions about, the safety for human consumption of insects, like crickets or mealworms, that could be turned into flour and then used.

And, what I found extremely interesting, was how the story evolved because it started as a really positive story about EFSA, this European Food Safety Authority, that was looking into this quite quirky new source of protein, new to Europe, because these insects have been consumed in other continents, but new for Europe. So, assessed under the novel food legislation.

And, so the first stories were really about the quirkiness of insects as a safe part of a possible future diet. And the story evolved relatively quickly into a story of why is this agency telling us that we have to eat insects, which is not what we were saying. Our work was really about the safety, about providing options, about making sure that new foods are safe and the story became: "We don't want to be force fed flour without knowing it." And then we really had to step into the role of rectifying information and explaining that there is a legislative framework that requires ingredients to be labelled, so there's nothing secret about using new ingredients in food. But what I found really interesting is how stories can evolve, and how important it is in a communications function to monitor the narrative, whether it's in the media or in social media, to really be prepared to adapt to the communications accordingly.

11:01

Mariya

Absolutely. Another topic, hot topic, that I think was also picked up by the Eurobarometer are microplastics, I believe there are some knowledge gaps there currently, and I was wondering in such cases, how do we as EFSA, or as a big European organisation, say: "We don't know at the moment", but still keeping our credibility of course.

11:26

Barbara

Yeah. Simply as you just said it. I think on these topics where there are data gaps, then we need to be very, very open about what we know, what we don't know yet and what we're doing, of course, to fill this data and information gap, which is very difficult in some circumstances, is that the data gap that we identify are not easily filled.

Microplastics is a very good example. So, we started identifying microplastics as a possible topic, emerging potential, emerging risk in the early 2000s. And in 2016 we issued some reports saying that there were specific gaps that needed to be filled. 2021, those gaps were still there. And we're still working on filling these gaps.

It's really important that we talk about the research that is required and why it takes so long to find answers, and putting it into context. But, really interestingly, microplastics in the Eurobarometer survey of 2025 indicated that 63% of European citizens are concerned about microplastics in food or water. It's really something that is in the sort of collective knowledge.

And there's nothing better than jokes or cartoons or satire to really show that something is in the public consciousness. And, I've got a brilliant joke that my four-year-old nephew told me.

13:03

Mariya

Please do share, I think we all want to hear it now.

13:05

Barbara

Okay, so yeah, four-year-old, little super cute boy and he says: "I've got a joke, can I tell you Auntie? A man goes to the fishmongers and says: I want a fish. And the fishmonger said: You want me to put it in a plastic bag? - No, thanks. The plastic is already inside it." So, this really shows that the scientific work that we do is really relevant because, these issues are being talked about and we need to provide answers as quickly and as precisely as possible.

12:38

Mariya

I'm not sure which of our target audiences your nephew would fit in terms of literacy, but, yeah, it's so ubiquitous. I think it deserves its own podcast episode, probably, in the future, this topic. We are going towards the end of our conversation. So, I would actually want to bring you back with the anecdote you shared at the very beginning, which I believe took place in the early 2000.

So, it's been a little more than 25 years you've been in this field actively. How do you see the field evolving and changing?

14:13

Barbara

Yes. It was quite nice to think back about what sparked my interest in science communication, and it was really that that event and the realisation that there is a lot more to science communication than communicating the facts.

So, I became involved with food safety as part of the generation that was coming out, or was sort of trying to address the aftermath of the mad cow disease. So, the paradigm there was very much, late 1990s and complete separation between risk assessment and risk management with risk communication as part of the risk analysis model being done independently by risk assessors and risk managers to preserve the independence of these two functions.

But on the risk communication, I think we have arrived at a stage where the independence of the two functions needs to continue to be preserved, but we also owe to the citizens and the consumers better coordinated communications across the risk assessors and risk managers. We have work in the food safety system that happens in different European agencies, one for food, one for chemicals, one for medicines, in different agencies, at European level, at national level, and we have a risk assessors and risk managers. We are all in the same space. When we provide answers to genuine questions from consumers, we shouldn't just provide our little piece of the answer. We should really coordinate our communication efforts so that the information about the the food we eat is accessible, clear, timely and not fragmented as maybe has been the case in the past.

16:07

Mariya

You have the same interests at heart, no? Public health at the end. I think it makes sense what you were saying to me.

16:12

Barbara

Yes, we're all working towards the same goal, and the questions that come from citizens sometimes are very simple, and we just make it more complicated by not answering cohesively and in a coordinated way.

16:28

Mariya

I want to pick up on what you said about making it complicated, and I cannot not ask you about something that we've used a lot recently to make things less complicated, which is AI, artificial intelligence, for finding information quickly, as a search engine even. I confess myself; I use it. Is it too early to factor in artificial intelligence in our communication? How do we factor it in our work?

16:52

Barbara

No, it's not too early. It's already there. We're already benefiting from artificial intelligence for translations, something that was not affordable for EFSA for example, just ten years ago when I started here, was to make our information available in all languages. Now, you can easily translate it yourself. So, this aspect is already there, as is this summary function. So, you said you use AI summarize, we all do. They can be very helpful or they can be very inaccurate. So, I think our work in the communications unit is really to equip ourselves with the technical skills to make sure that we are the reputable source that is used by summarization artificial intelligence tools to provide information that is quick, concise, but is also accurate.

17:58

Mariya

Accurate. That's a great message to end on, I think, Barbara. Indeed, ours is the accurate source. Thank you so much for taking the time to join the podcast and for sharing your expertise.

18:07

Barbara

Thank you, Mariya.

18:09

Mariya

It was really a pleasure to have you and hope to maybe see you again for another episode. Who knows?

18:12

Barbara

Yeah. With pleasure. Thank you.

18:14

Mariya

Thank you very much also to our listeners and viewers for joining us for another episode. Remember, you can catch all episodes on wherever you get your podcasts. For now, this is all from us, and I hope to see you next time on Science on the Menu.