RTI International, Tennessee State University, and Kansas State University conducted a national survey of U.S. adults using a Web-enabled panel survey approach. The purpose of the survey was to characterize home storage and refrigeration practices for a variety of refrigerated ready-to-eat (RTE) foods and consumers' knowledge and use of open date statements (e.g., "use by" or "sell by") among pregnant women, seniors, and the remaining population. The survey was funded through a grant from the National Integrated Food Safety Initiative of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Grant No. 2004-51110-02177).

These documents describe the study, the questionnaires used, the characteristics of the respondents, and the survey data.

This dataset provides information on respondent demographics such as age, gender, race, education, income, etc.

This dataset provides the survey responses on storage times for various refrigerated RTE foods; refrigerator thermometer ownership and refrigerator temperature; and knowledge and use of open date statements on refrigerated RTE foods.

A description of the survey and analysis of the results have been published in:

Kosa, K..M.., Cates, S. C., Karns, S., Godwin, S.L., Chambers, D. 2007.  Consumer Knowledge and Use of Open Dates: Results of a Web-Based Survey. J. Food Protection 70 (5); 12-13-1219.   [PubMed]