Role of risk perception and government regulation in reducing over-utilization of veterinary antibiotics: Evidence from hog farmers of China

Antibiotic residues and resistance caused by farmers' overuse of veterinary antibiotics have severely damaged global food safety, the ecological environment, and public health. How to lessen the overutilization of antibiotics is of prime concern nowadays; however, the existing literature has paid little attention. So, to fill this gap, the current study explores the role of risk perception and government regulation in reducing the over-utilization of veterinary antibiotics by gathering data from 675 hog farmers in the Hebei, Henan, Hubei, and Shandong provinces of China. The Heckman two-stage model is employed to explore the phenomenon. Meanwhile, risk perception is categorized into food security risk perception (FSRP), ecological security risk perception (ESRP), and public health risk perception (PHRP), and government regulation is measured from antibiotic prescribed policy (APP), withdrawal period policy (WPP), and antibiotic recorded policy (ARP). The results showed that the PHRP (ODC: ME = -0.073, SE = 0.018; ODG: ME = -0.125, SE = 0.047) significantly inhibits farmers' overuse of antibiotics. In contrast, the ESRP and PHRP have not shown significant results in influencing farmers' overuse of antibiotics. Moreover, the APP (ODC: ME = -0.035, SE = 0.016; ODG: ME = -0.088, SE = 0.040) and WPP (ODC: ME = -0.072, SE = 0.039; ODG: ME = -0.175, SE = 0.097) significantly reduce antibiotics overuse, but the influence of the ARP on farmers' antibiotics overuse is not apparent. Further, a moderating effect model is used to analyze the moderating effect of government regulation on farmers' overuse of antibiotics influenced by risk perception. The results showed that the APP (ODC: ME = -0.041, SE = 0.012; ODG: ME = -0.075, SE = 0.018) and WPP (ODC: ME = -0.058, SE = 0.015; ODG: ME = -0.076, SE = 0.019) positively influence farmers' overuse of antibiotics impacted by public health risk perception. In contrast, the ARP has no positive reinforcement effect. Finally, the study proposes that government should devolve the supervision power to veterinarians, strengthen the regulation policy advocacy, conduct training programs for farmers regarding skills to use antibiotics, and strengthen biosafety measures.