PARTICIPANT INFORMATION
What is the purpose of this study?
The choices we make in how we plan, buy, process, prepare, consume, store, and dispose of food—what we call “food practices”—can affect our health and the environment’s health. These food practices are influenced by many different factors, including things like affordability, time, distance to the nearest shop, etc. In this study, we want to understand the choices you make around food and why you make them, and we want to know how you feel these choices affect the environment. We also want to know what you think about environmental sustainability, which we loosely define as keeping the balance in the planet’s natural environment and protecting natural resources for current and future generations.
Invitation
We are pleased to invite adults living in Galway City and County to participate in this research project. To help you make an informed choice about whether you would like to participate, we’ve provided the following information about our study and what your participation will involve. Please read this information carefully and discuss it with others if you’d like to. If you find anything unclear or would like more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Eligibility
To take part in this study, you must be an adult (18 years or older) and live in Galway City or County. You must also have access to the internet through a mobile device or computer.
What would taking part involve?
In this study, we are conducting surveys and focus groups. To participate, you will complete a brief online survey about your background and how you think about and interact with food in your daily life. This survey will take about 15-20 minutes of your time. At the end of the survey, you will have the option to sign up to participate in a focus group session by providing your email address. If you sign up, you will be contacted later with more information.
Focus group sessions will be held between January and March 2025 and will take about 1 hour of your time. On the day of your focus group session, you will meet the researchers either on the University of Galway campus or another designated location in your community. Refreshments will be provided during the focus group session. Your session will be led by either Nicole Olweean, Dr Anne Mullen, or another appointed facilitator, and will be audio-recorded so that it can be transcribed in full after the session. Before beginning, your facilitator will explain how the session will work and answer any questions you have. During both the questionnaire and the focus group discussions, you may choose not to answer any question.
Confidentiality and respect among focus group participants are important values in this study. As a participant in a focus group session, you will be expected to respect the views, practices, and opinions of all focus groups members and the confidentiality of the things they express during the session.
What will happen if I do not want to carry on with the study?
Your participation is voluntary. You are free to withdraw any time without giving any reason until the study data undergoes final analysis so it can be submitted for publication in a scientific journal. You may also have concerns about how your information is handled. More on this can be found in the next section.
Confidentiality and data protection
Personal data will be collected during this study, including your name, gender, age, education, income band, profession, ethnicity, and, in some cases, contact details (email address). This information is collected because we believe that, in Ireland, these are related to food practices. Your name and contact details will be linked to a unique ID and will be stored on a password protected file on a password protected computer in the University of Galway. This information will not be shared and will be deleted permanently after 7 years. By using a unique ID, your identity is never linked to the study data, and you cannot be identified from it. However, if you wish to withdraw your data from the study, you may withdraw at any point during the study or at a later stage, up until the data undergoes final analysis for submission to a scientific journal. University of Galway is the sponsor for this study, based in Galway, Ireland. We will act as the data controller and will be responsible for using and storing your information properly. We will store and process personal data in line with the purposes outlined in the study and in line with GDPR.
Here are some key points about how your information will be handled:
- Confidentiality: All information submitted by you for this study will be treated as strictly confidential and kept securely. It will not be possible to identify you in any reporting or publications that come from the study.
- Personally identifiable information (PII): All information submitted by you will be anonymized, meaning any PII (your name, etc.) that could be used to personally connect you with your responses will not be attached to your responses during data analysis or in results. Instead, a unique identifier code linking your PII with the study data will be used and your PII will be stored separately. We will continue to store your PII so that we know which information is yours in case you wish to withdraw it from the study at any point. To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum PII possible.
- Data storage: Your PII will be stored in a password-protected file on a password-protected computer that will be kept in a locked office at the University of Galway. Your questionnaire and focus group responses (anonymized so that they cannot be connected to you) will be kept in a password-protected file on the University of Galway’s cloud server. Anonymized transcripts from the focus groups will be verified for accuracy by the head researcher, and the audio files will be permanently deleted immediately after verification.
Open data principles are an important part of research that allow citizens, other researchers, and research reviewers to have access to raw data from research studies. This supports transparency in research and allows raw data to be used by other researchers to further knowledge. In keeping with these principles, we intend to make our research data available in an online data repository, where it will be available indefinitely. In this repository, responses from the questionnaire will be included and an analysis of focus group transcripts will be included—full focus group transcripts will not be included. Your PII will not be included in the data stored in this repository and you will not be identifiable through this data.
University of Galway will securely store identifiable information about you for 7 years after the research project has ended, and then it will be deleted. Likewise, all anonymized questionnaire responses and focus group transcripts will be deleted from the University of Galway server after 7 years.
Confidentiality of the data provided cannot be absolutely guaranteed by the researchers and can only be protected within the limitations of the law. To learn more about data protection policies at the University of Galway, visit: https://www.universityofgalway.ie/data-protection/
If you have questions or concerns regarding your data protection, please feel free to contact the university’s Data Protection Officer using the information below:
The Data Protection Officer,
University of Galway, Room A129,
The Quadrangle, University of Galway,
University Road, Galway
Email: dataprotection@universityofgalway.ie
What are the possible benefits of taking part?
Participating in this study could give you the opportunity to learn more about your own food practices, perhaps noticing patterns or habits. We hope all participants will be happy to know they have contributed to new knowledge that will support shifts to healthier and more sustainable food practices.
Food Systems Lab 