Student blog post: 5% of adults in America are now Vegan

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https://news.therawfoodworld.com/16-million-people-us-now-vegan-vegetarian/

The article claimed that almost 16 million people in America are now vegan. To calculate whether 16 million represents the 5% of America, I searched the total population of the USA, which came to 318.9 million. I divided 16 million with 318.9 million to get a sum of 0.05 and then I multiplied this value with 100 to get the percentage sum of 5%. According to my calculation, 16 million does in fact represent 5% value and so the claim is true.

I wanted to dig deeper and find the methodology used to obtain the “16 million” value. The method used can be found in the source:

http://www.vrg.org/blog/2011/12/05/how-many-adults-are-vegan-in-the-u-s/

Harris Interactive study (commissioned by the Vegetarian Resource Group) used telephone interview on a sample of 1010 adults above the age of 18 across nationwide. Participant’s age, sex, race, education, region, number of household and number of telephone lines were considered when necessary when reflecting the actual proportions in the population. Telephone interviews can be critiqued for having a low reliability as respondents may give a dishonest answer, as there is no sense of chemistry between them and the interviewer (make it easier to give false answer).

The data overall can be criticized for being unreliable as they “did not ask about honey” which is crucial to the definition of veganism. Respondents who do not eat “Never eat meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs” may be considered vegan to that description but if they consume honey then they would be disregarded as a vegan.

Lastly, the sample size used is extremely poor as 1010 is a very difficult to generalise to the whole of USA with a population size of 318.9 million. Also, as the sample size only consists of those who answer and are willing to participate in the survey, the sample may be considered as biased. This is due to the reason that participants who answer may have shared characteristics (e.g. education, which state they come from, diet, etc.). This would mean that non-respondents are not included in the sample, which could’ve affected the overall result (may potentially could missed those who are vegans which would change the overall number).

 

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