Qualified Health Claim Language affects Purchase Intentions for Green Tea Products in the United States

Qualified health claims (QHC) describe diet&ndash
disease relationships and summarize the quality and strength of evidence for a claim. Companies assert that QHCs increase sales and take legal action to ensure claims reflect their interests. Yet, there is no empirical evidence that QHCs influence consumers. Using green tea as a case study, this study investigated the effects of QHCs on purchase intentions among adults 55 years and older living in the US. An online survey using a between-subjects design examined QHCs about the relationship between green tea and the reduced risk of breast and/or prostate cancer or yukichi fruit juice and the reduced risk of gastrocoridalis, a fictitious relationship. QHCs written by a green tea company generated greater perceptions of evidence for the relationship, greater confidence in green tea and cancer, and increased purchase intentions for green tea than other QHCs. Factors that mitigated the claim&rsquo
s effects on purchase intentions are: Race/ethnicity
age
importance of health claims
supplement use
health
worry about health/becoming sick with cancer
worry that led to dietary change
green tea consumption
and familiarity with the green tea&ndash
cancer. Consumers who made health-related dietary change in the past year and consider health claims important indicated greater purchase intentions than others.