Public perception of food safety governance and its influencing factors and research trends

Abstract

Food safety governance has become increasingly important in public health and social governance, yet improvements in formal regulatory systems do not necessarily translate into more positive public evaluations. This integrative review synthesizes multidisciplinary evidence on public perception of food safety governance based on a structured search of Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang Data from database inception to August 2026. The review conceptualizes public perception of food safety governance as a multidimensional evaluation encompassing regulatory effectiveness, institutional trust and credibility, transparency and communication, fairness and accountability, and participation and responsiveness. These evaluations are shaped by individual, cognitive and psychological, institutional, informational, and governance-contextual factors and are associated with behavioral responses such as protective behavior, complaints, reporting, and public participation. Conceptually, this review distinguishes governance perception from the narrower concept of food safety risk perception. Theoretically, it proposes a governance–perception–response–feedback framework that positions public perception as an interpretive link between governance conditions and behavioral and potential legitimacy consequences. The review also highlights the Chinese context, where state coordination, social co-governance, digital communication, and subnational variation shape public evaluations of governance. However, conceptual and measurement heterogeneity, reliance on cross-sectional designs, and limited evidence for longer-term governance feedback remain important limitations. Future research should develop standardized multidimensional measures and employ longitudinal, comparative, and context-sensitive designs.