Although seafood is considered to be an important part of a balanced diet, many national food consumption surveys suggest that seafood is not consumed in sufficient amounts. As consumers are moving to diversify their diet from animal-based protein(1), it is important to understand the factors influencing consumption of marine foods. This review aims to assess the characteristics of seafood consumers as well as the influences on seafood consumption in Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Systematic search strategies were used to identify relevant journal articles from three electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science and EMBASE). Three searches were carried out and identified 4405 unique publications from which 121 met the criteria for the review process. The reviewed studies revealed that seafood consumers were more likely to be older, more affluent, more physically active, and were less likely to smoke compared to non-seafood consumers. Sex and Body Mass Index (BMI) did not appear to have a directional association with seafood consumption. The most commonly reported barriers to seafood consumption were cost, followed by sensory or physical barriers, health and nutritional beliefs, habits, availability and cooking skills. The most commonly reported influences were beliefs about the contribution of seafood to health, environmental influences and personal preferences. Based on the findings of this review, future intervention strategies to increase seafood consumption may need to consider affordability and education in terms of health, nutrition and cooking skills. More research is needed to explore the effectiveness of specific interventions at increasing the consumption of seafood.

AbstractIntroduction:Little is known about the factors which influence seafood consumption in Irish adults at present. This systematic review will serve the purpose of reviewing published literature examining influences on seafood consumption to provide a basis for a larger project being carried out in UCD - the Seafood Consumption and Risk Exposure Study (SCaRES) - examination of seafood consumption in the Irish population. This project aims to generate food consumption data, on seafood, consumers to improve the characterisation of the risk from exposure to biotoxins and other contaminants from consuming shellfish. This approach will represent a significant step forward in terms of public health policy contribution by being able to characterise the likelihood of illness in a population or population sub-group on an annual basis.Materials and Methods:Data sources PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science were searched for articles published between January 2008 and January 2018 investigating the characteristics of seafood consumers. Search terms include the following: factors OR influences OR determinants OR indicators AND fish OR seafood OR shellfish OR marine products AND diet OR dietary intake OR intake OR consumption. Articles, in English which investigated factors influencing seafood/fish consumption in adults (18 + ) were included.Results:A total of 3964 unique articles were found, after duplicates (n = 1537) were removed. Following this, a further 3531 articles were excluded based on title and abstract. The remaining articles (n = 433) were screened based on inclusion criteria. After the initial systematic search, 149 papers met the inclusion criteria. Preliminary analysis to date demonstrated the following; seafood consumers are more likely to have higher educational attainment (n = 43 article), they are more likely to be of older age (n = 29 articles), 21 articles reported that they are less likely to be smokers, whilst n = 17, found that they are more likely to be physically active, with n = 20 reporting they are more likely to have a healthier overall diet and n = 14 reporting that they are more likely to have a higher household income. Results were mixed with respect to BMI.Discussion:The included studies have found that seafood consumers are more likely to have higher educational attainment, be of older age, have lower tobacco use, be physically active, have a higher fruit and vegetable intake and have a higher household income. Full analysis is ongoing.

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AbstractIntroductionHealthy eating recommendations advise eating two portions of fish per week. Although seafood consumption has doubled globally over the last 50 years there is currently very little data on seafood consumption in Ireland. It is important to know what is being consumed by a population for nutritional and food safety purposes. The aim of this study is to collect reported dietary intake data from Irish seafood consumers, using an online dietary intake assessment tool, to determine habitual intakes of seafood for use in risk assessment.Materials and MethodsFoodbook24 is a self-administered, online 24hr recall tool developed for the purpose of nutritional surveillance in Ireland. For the purpose of this study it was further developed to include a detailed list of seafood regularly consumed in Ireland. Foods were selected using established food databases (Langual, FoodEx2 and BIM Seafood Handbook). Food composition was determined using McCance and Widdowson (7th Ed.) and portion sizes were based on NANS, published portion size books and recipes. Participants will be recruited using commonly used approaches; radio adverts & face-to-face recruitment. Seafood consumers (n = 1000), balanced for gender, age and urban/rural location, will be targeted. Participants will complete 2×24hr recalls, over 2 weeks, and complete an accompanying food frequency questionnaire. Demographic and lifestyle data will also be collected.ResultsIn the development of the tool, a total of 246 foods were added to Foodbook24, including 38 species of fish, with approximately 2–25 fish dishes for each fish. The composition of 156 foods were a direct match to McCance and Widdowson, 36 were similar and 24 used a combination of foods. For fish meals and recipes, 17 meals had a direct match in McCance and Widdowson and 10 were obtained using the average of 3 recipes. Foodbook24 contained a large proportion (92%) of the relevant portion sizes, others came from relevant books and recipes.DiscussionData collection is currently ongoing, but it is expected that the study will represent a significant step forward in public health policy contribution by characterising the likelihood of illness within a population on an annual basis. Furthermore, it will demonstrate the use of novel intake assessment technologies for fast and cost-effective collection of data for risk assessment purposes, reducing the time and cost required for data collection.