Surveying seafood consumption - a methodological analysis

This paper addresses the need to establish a fast, effective and reliable method for collecting fish and seafood consumption data at the village level. Two different approaches, a community participatory and a classical survey one were tested and validated against each other. Using fully structured questionnaire surveys also reliability of results obtained from household and individual interviews were compared. Furthermore, taking fresh fish consumption as an example, three different methods were assessed to approximate best per capita consumption. Approaches and methods are validated in terms of time and human resource requirements, and data quality by comparing data sets obtained in Polynesian and Melanesian communities. Adding efficiency criteria, adoption of household average consumption surveys is concluded to best combine reliable data and least time and financial requirements. Per capita fresh fish consumption was found to best estimated using a simplified WHO system that takes into account gender-age correction factors.