Descriptive Survey of Household Product Warning Labels and Consumer Knowledge

Abstract

Many household products are associated with several safety hazards ranging from minimal to severe and life threatening. Several household products were surveyed to determine conformity of labels to principles known to enhance warning label effectiveness and to determine consumer knowledge of product hazards identified by experts to be unfamiliar to consumers. Most product labels did not apply signal word/background color principles or symbols/pictorials, which are features known to facilitate attention capture, comprehension, and compliance. Although point biserial correlations were significant for the relationship between product usage and accuracy of reporting product hazards, consumers had little overall knowledge of the specific hazards in question. Implications for household product label design are discussed.