Scottish meat consumption survey (Feb–Jul 2023): attitudes, COM-B measures, and perceived effectiveness of meat-reduction policies (Best-Worst Scaling)

Anonymised individual-level responses from an online survey of adults (≥18 years) living in Scotland, collected February to July 2023. Participants were recruited via Qualtrics to approximate a nationally representative sample stratified by age, gender, education, and ethnicity. The survey included three sections: (1) attitudes to meat reduction and current behaviour using COM-B framed items (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation) on Likert scales, (2) a Best-Worst Scaling task rating the perceived effectiveness of 25 potential meat-reduction policies and interventions, and (3) socio-demographic characteristics. In the associated publication, latent class analysis was used to identify four attitudinal subgroups (Resistant, Ambivalent, Open, Active meat reducers). Files in this record include: a cleaned CSV dataset, a machine-readable codebook (TSV and JSON), and a README describing the variables and processing steps. The open-release dataset contains 1,590 respondent records and 150 variables (columns). A sequential participant_id was generated for the open-release file. Ethical approval was granted by the Rowett Ethics Panel at the University of Aberdeen, and informed consent was obtained from participants. Associated publication: McBey D, Martinez Sanchez G, Horgan G, Macdiarmid JI, McCormick BJJ. “Perceived effectiveness of 25 interventions and policies designed to reduce meat consumption”. Food Quality and Preference, 135, 105693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2025.105693