FSANS Explorer banner showing various foods

FDA's Food Safety and Nutrition Survey (FSANS)

FDA's premier, national probability consumer survey designed to elicit consumers' knowledge, understanding, and reported behaviors on a variety of food safety and nutrition-related topics.

This application can be used to display survey question and demographic frequencies, and to run chi-square tests of independence, by using the “Frequencies” tab.

Several questions in FSANS are multi-part (i.e., grid) questions. These questions can be visualized as a bar chart by using the “Multi-part Questions” tab.

Note: Please zoom your browser if needed. Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, or Google Chrome is recommended.


Explore the Data

Survey Methods

  • FSANS uses an address-based sampling method

  • General population; U.S. adults 18+

  • Fielded October to November 2019

  • Sample size = 4,398

  • Response rate 28%

  • English and Spanish

  • Some questions versioned – half the sample received primarily food safety questions and half nutrition related questions. Survey version for each question is indicated on the "Frequencies" tab.

  • All data are weighted by default. To display unweighted data frequencies, use the “Advanced Features” tab.

Visit the CFSAN Consumer Behavior Research webpage for more information about the survey design and to view the full survey report.

Contact Info

For questions about the FSANS survey, please email Amy Lando .
For questions about this web application, please email Martine Ferguson .

User Tips

  • This app is intended for laptops or desktops and will probably not work well with mobile devices.

  • Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, or Google Chrome is recommended.

  • Resize your browser to better fit plots & legends by holding Ctrl and pressing - (zoom out) or + (zoom in).

  • Use the information boxes denoted by question marks for more information:

Quick Guide
Down arrow showing the sequence of steps (1, 2, 3) to test for independence.
Survey version
Missing response
Adjust pie chart
Survey version
Food Safety Yes
Nutrition Yes
Missing response
Adjust pie chart
Group Responses
Group Responses
Group Responses
Group Responses
Group Responses
Note: Hover the mouse cursor over the bar chart (or touch the screen) for response counts (n) and percentages.
Note: Hover the mouse cursor over the bar chart (or touch the screen) for response counts (n) and percentages.

Advanced Features

These features are for users who are already familiar with survey sampling and the FSANS data.

Sampling Weights

The weighted option (recommended) uses sampling weights (the reciprocal of selection probability) and takes survey design into account. Weights are also adjusted for non-response. The unweighted option does not use sampling weights. This option helps you assess the impact of sampling weights on the results. In most cases, the unweighted and weighted results will be fairly similar.