attempt to highlight certain understudied parts of consumers’ FAFH should raise interest among health
economists, health advocates, nutritionist, the FAFH industry, and the like.
Study results show that although most of the African-Americana consumers eat out less frequently
compared to the general population, the younger generation of African-American consumers behaved
no differently than the general population. In terms of food choices and choices for restaurant types,
African-American consumers had similar choice to that of the general population, i.e., both groups had
similar selections. Similarly, the factors that influenced FAFH behavior of the general population, such
as taste-quality of food and ambience, were also common to African-American consumers. This should
be encouraging to the foodservice industry because if this conclusion holds nationally, then it will
reduce cost of promotion and other marketing strategies, including developing new food to cater to a
particular ethnic group.
Given the known health and diet issues in the African-American population, we were surprised to find
that nutritional or healthy food aspect of food eaten away from home was ranked very low among
these consumers. However, given the shortcomings of this study, further assessment health education
and awareness among minority population and designing policies to combat health problems related
food may be necessary.
Finally, we plan to examine relationships between African-American consumers eating out behavior
and some of the issues discussed in this article using both parametric and non-parametric tests. We
plan to present these results as an addendum to this article.