The primary purpose of this study is to collect information from citizens with a food hypersensitivity about eating food prepared by others outside the home.

People with food hypersensitivities are the real experts when eating out and trying to avoid allergens.

This project will provide you with multiple opportunities to tell us about your eating out experiences. By taking part, you will have the chance to feedback important information about your eating out experience to a team of scientists working with the Food Standards Agency.

We define food hypersensitivity as food allergy, intolerance, or coeliac disease which causes adverse reactions leading you to avoid particular foods.

Co-design the data collection tool (the survey exploring eating out experiences) with project partners and a sample of citizen scientists who have expressed interest in helping finalise the survey questions.

Once the survey is finalised and sent to all participants, citizen scientists will complete the survey over the next 3 months for each and every eating experiences they may have.

During this time, citizen scientists can also choose to join a private Facebook group to engage with the rest of the fellow citizen scientists participating in the project.

Once the 3-month period is over, several citizen scientists who have expressed an interest will be invited to take part in an interview with us so that we may find out about their experience of being a citizen scientist.

We will hold online workshops with project partners as well as citizen scientists who have expressed interest in taking part in this phase of the project. These workshops are designed to discuss the findings and how best to present them to the public.