The promotion of alcoholic beverage consumption and traffic speed in Brazil: considerations on the advertising of two public health problems

Abstracts

Traffic accidents, which are often associated with speeding, and the problems associated with consumption of alcoholic beverages are two major public health concerns in Brazil. These problems may be associated, as in the case of drunk driving, but they also occur independently. Commercial advertising is one of the factors that have an impact on these issues. The influence of advertising on many health issues, including alcohol consumption and traffic safety plays a role that has been continuously investigated and understood. Public and private sectors in Brazil have an influence on the advertising regulation, which is still mainly performed by industry self-regulation. This paper presents a general framework on the subject. In addition, faced with the social and economic hazards resulting from alcohol consumption and traffic accidents, it discusses the role of communication means, its social responsibility and the limits of self-regulation.

Traffic accidents; speed; media; alcohol and advertising

Os acidentes de trânsito, muitas vezes relacionados com excesso de velocidade, e os problemas decorrentes do consumo de bebidas alcoólicas são dois importantes problemas de saúde pública no Brasil. Esses problemas podem estar associados, como no caso do dirigir alcoolizado, mas também se apresentam de maneira independente. Entre os diversos fatores que impactam nesses problemas encontra-se a propaganda de estímulo (comerciais). A influência da propaganda em várias questões de saúde, incluindo consumo de álcool e segurança no uso de veículos, tem um papel que recentemente está sendo mais estudado e compreendido. Setores públicos e privados no Brasil têm influência na regulamentação da propaganda, que é ainda principalmente exercida através do exercício da auto-regulamentação. O presente artigo apresenta um quadro geral sobre o assunto e, diante dos prejuízos de ordem social e econômica advindos do consumo de bebidas e dos acidentes, propõe-se a discutir o papel que vem sendo exercido pelos meios de comunicação, sua responsabilidade social e os limites da auto-regulamentação.

Acidentes de trânsito; velocidade; mídia; álcool e propaganda

THEORETICAL–CLINICAL COMMUNICATION

The promotion of alcoholic beverage consumption and traffic speed in Brazil: considerations on the advertising of two public health problems

Ilana Pinsky^I; Roberto Victor Pavarino Filho^II

^IUnit of Research on Alcohol and Drugs (UNIAD), Department of Psychiatry, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil

^IICentro de Formação de Recursos Humanos em Transportes (CEFTRU), Universidade de Brasília (UnB), Brasília, DF, Brazil

^{Correspondence}

ABSTRACT

Traffic crashes, which are often associated with speeding, and the problems associated with consumption of alcoholic beverages are two major public health concerns in Brazil. These problems may be associated, as in the case of drunk driving, but they also occur independently. Commercial advertising is one of the factors that have an impact on these issues. The influence of advertising on many health issues, including alcohol consumption and traffic safety plays a role that has been continuously investigated and understood. Public and private sectors in Brazil have an influence on the advertising regulation, which is still mainly performed by industry self–regulation. This paper presents a general framework on the subject. In addition, faced with the social and economic hazards resulting from alcohol consumption and traffic crashes, it discusses the role of communication means, its social responsibility and the limits of self–regulation.

Keywords: Traffic crashes, speed, media, alcohol and advertising.

Introduction

Traffic crashes and the consequences of alcohol consumption are among the main public health problems in Brazil. These problems may be associated, as in the case of drunk driving, but they also occur independently.

Nowadays, there are many surveys on the consumption of alcoholic beverages in Brazil and major indications of the influence this habit has on public health. Only to mention larger data, since the 1980's five surveys have been carried out among school and high school students, the same number of studies among homeless children, two home surveys and several follow–ups of hospitalization rates due to chemical dependence.¹ In addition, a study carried out in many cities about drunk driving and a national survey using a probabilistic sample about alcohol consumption patterns should be concluded in 2007.

The results of those studies consider alcoholic beverage as a psychotropic substance well known by teenagers, with mean onset age of alcohol use of a little more than 12 years,² i.e., much before the legal age for alcohol consumption.

If there already is a tradition in epidemiological surveys concerning alcoholic beverage consumption, information about traffic crashes, although available, is usually deficient. There is, however, a certain consensus among specialists that the number of deaths related to traffic crashes in Brazil would hardly be lower than 30,000 people a year, whereas the total of injured people would be close to 400,000. This amount of deaths is approximately equal to the number of men who die due to infectious and parasitical diseases in Brazil or a little more than half of Brazilian women affected by neoplasia, which is the second cause of death in the country.³

Traffic injuries represent between 1 and 2% of the GDP of national economies,⁴ and 90% of deaths occur in low– and medium–income countries, where poorer populations – exactly those who have less access to health services after an injury – account for most victims.

In Brazil, injuries related to land transportations account for the second place among deaths caused by external causes (which include homicides and varied accidents). Besides disintegration of family cores, suffering and other consequences that are hard to measure, the sum of costs related to conflicts involving collisions, falls and run over in Brazilian urban streets and highways are near R$ 30 billion a year between 2003 and 2006, according to studies published by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA).⁵ According to IPEA, most losses are due to loss of production associated with people's death or interruption of activities, followed by costs in health care and those associated with vehicles.

There are many factors contributing to these high rates of problems related to alcohol and traffic crashes. Concerning accidents, they generally occur as a result of the combination of some factors related to physical environment (nature/conditions of circulation space), to vehicles (their limitations and failures) and to people who use the streets (behavior, education, skills). Linked to the latter variable (usually understood as "human" factor) there is the influence of a political and social environment related to the perception that an individual has of the probability of penalties. That is, omission of public power and impunity, for example, can be understood as factors favoring the occurrence of accidents.

Several similar situations influence the increase of problems related to alcoholic beverage consumption. Therefore, a loose legislation that has little inspection (unspecific laws, few breath analyzers, insufficient amount of police officers) and easy access to alcoholic products (sales schedule, number of outlets, product price) are key elements to understand the numbers presented above. Other factors include social and family aspects (excessive tolerance regarding alcohol consumption, frequent consumption by close people, such as parents and friends, etc.).

More recently, studies have investigated the way by which advertising and the media generally portrait public health issues. This literature has analyzed from behaviors such as violence (analysis of violent TV shows and videogames), childhood obesity (advertising of hypercaloric products) and consumption of cigarettes (such as cinema, TV and advertisements related to this issue) to oral health care.^6,7 Large part of that literature attempts to descriptively understand the association between health issues and communication means from varied perspectives. Nowadays, a body of research has been formed, especially concerning violence, tobacco and alcoholic beverage consumption, to assess the impact of TV shows and advertising on problems associated with these behaviors.^6,8,9

From the political perspective, some Brazilian governmental agencies seem to be more interested in inspecting the content of advertisements. This is how agencies such as the Federal Public Ministry, Procon [Consumer Protection Service] and the Congress have acted in the sense of regulating and prohibiting advertisements.¹⁰ This movement is evidently criticized by advertising agencies and representative organs, which are organized around a self–regulation of their work.

The present article aims at discussing the contribution of promoting alcoholic beverages and vehicles, focusing on the encouragement to speed and on subsequent associated problems. We aim at briefly presenting the current literature on the effects of advertising, the Brazilian legislation on this area and provide examples of the difficulties in self–regulation of this sector.

Automotive vehicles, speed and advertising

In many so–called "accidents", the energy of the shock is proportional to squared speed, which increases the force and damages of a collision at a higher proportion as speed increases. However, the problem is much more severe when shocks are between bodies of evident disproportion, such as between cars and cyclists or in pedestrians injured in traffic crashes. Speed is often pointed as one of the main factors of traffic crashes, since, although not being the only among several variables contributing to an event, it in fact increases the potential of damages from other factors that are involved in disasters. That is, whatever the elements considered responsible for the occurrence of the event (failure of directly involved people, mechanical failure or poor street conditions), the intensity of resulting damages also increases proportionally to speed. Therefore, it is understandable that a large part of safety measures are focused on controlling speed, which usually brings verifiable benefits (reduced morbidity and mortality rates and damage severity).

Speed limits, however, prescribe a behavior that is difficult to be accepted in an environment of fast social, technological and economic changes. In a world and at a time in which efficiency is synonym for celerity, in which things are good when they are fast (or yet because they are fast), current speed limits in the streets seem to be unacceptable. In addition, a study¹¹ shows that there still is "relativity" of the concept of speed, in a way to allow a driver to be based on self–referenced parameters as to what would be reasonable limits.

The rule of law that limits speed in streets at X km/h, in its turn, is the same that allows the manufacturing, commerce and advertising of cars reaching up to 3X km/h, going against reason. Such paradoxes foretell conflict of values.

Marin & Queiroz¹² found the relationship of speed and experience of feelings of greatness and fantasy of omnipotence, identifying in automobiles a compensation for anxious and apathetic egos. They also observed the influence of advertising on behavior and formation of values and, especially concerning advertisements associating fast cars to manhood, significant influence on the risk group of young drivers.

In the USA, in 1998, the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS), in a survey on demand,¹³ analyzed a sample of TV commercials of automobiles in the 1980's and 1990's. The predominant theme was performance of vehicles, concerning their potency and speed – a topic that is eight times more frequent than safety. IIHS, which constantly approaches the theme of speed in their periodic publications, continued to monitor TV commercials of automobiles in the USA, verifying that, in 2003,¹⁴ the same appeals to performance of cars are still the most recurrent form of selling cars. Among the examples of advertising observed throughout that period, a Mercedes is chased by motorcycles and a helicopter. After the cinematographic chasing scene, there is the following message: "to catch one, you gotta be in one."

In Brazil, as in other countries, the automotive industry invests heavily in advertising, and TV commercials receive most part of these investments. Enoki & Santos¹⁵ assume as hypothesis the fact that advertising messages – explicit or implicit – reinforce values that lead people to drive their vehicles aggressively, putting both the lives of the driver and of other people at risk. As in the survey carried out by the American IIHS, the authors proceeded to analyses of a series of commercials related to automobiles in Brazil and observed that "negative" aspects (for example: sarcasm, rivalry, speed, transgression) overcome those understood as "positive" (care, stability, safety, solidarity) and others considered "ambivalent."

There are innumerous examples of negative values. Only to mention a few, the Traffic Department of Rio Grande do Sul (Detran–RS),¹⁶ in 2005, filed a lawsuit against advertisements of pick–up vehicles published in a magazine with a large national circulation with messages such as "If you are a man, you don't honk: you scare the car in front of you" or "Be part of an overwhelming minority," followed by pictures taken from angles that emphasize the aggressiveness of those vehicles.

Detran–RS had already filed similar lawsuits in other occasions (not always successfully). The portal of the Secretary of Justice and Security of this state refers other campaigns, such as that of a tire industry, broadcast on December 2005, with the message: "Let the horses go;" the campaign of an automobile, on May 2004: "Life starts at 18, when you can drive. But it gets more exciting at 120"; and the advertisement of a certain gasoline, by the end of 2005: "The pleasure of driving at a high octane rating." Those advertisements, according to Detran–RS, were aggressive and induced consumers to use their vehicles at a high speed, being irresponsible and reckless, against public safety, comparing a common car to a Formula 1 car.

As can be noted, promotion of speed is not restricted to vehicle manufacturers, but to a whole industry related to it (essential equipment, accessories, fuels, etc.) and even to the services and entertainment industry.

Alcoholic beverages and advertising

Until a few years ago, the results of impact studies were quite fragile, presenting difficulties in effectively confirming the association of alcohol advertising with increased consumption of this product.¹⁷ Although this connection intuitively seems evident (which other reason would justify millions spent on advertising?), the argument used by the alcohol industry is that advertising is an instrument of brand choice for individuals who already are consumers. Since the methodology of this area is extremely complex (there are several factors self–influencing each other at the same time, it is difficult to measure exposure or even number of advertisements, etc.), research in this area has not advanced public policies for years. Nowadays, it can be said that current studies resulted in a body of important knowledge on this theme.

Since the 1990's, articles with more precise methodology started being published, resulting from the advances in understanding how the effects of advertising influence consumption. Two key books about alcohol public policies, published in 1994 and 2003, summarize the advances made in this area. The first publication¹⁸ concludes that, besides distinguishing between different brands, alcohol advertising "reinforces pro–alcohol attitudes, since it increases alcohol consumption among individuals who already drink, demotivates drinkers to reduce or stop drinking and influences formation of public policies" (p. 169). The second book,⁸ already under the effect of a more globalized and aggressive marketing industry of alcoholic beverages and counting on more accurate results, is even more assertive in its conclusions. The authors analyze that: "Despite research on alcohol advertising probably remaining highly controversial, there is some evidence showing that marketing may have an impact on young people ( ). Studies indicate the cumulative influence of alcohol advertising by formatting young people's perception about alcohol and rules of drinking. Alcohol advertising predisposes young people to drinking much before the legal age for purchase" (p. 183).

Brazil only recently started a line of research on that area. In 1994, one of the present authors analyzed the themes and frequency of television advertising of alcoholic beverages.¹⁹ The study showed that advertisements and vignettes (short calls to show sponsorship of a given show) of alcoholic beverages were more frequent than cigarette (at that time, there was no law prohibiting its broadcasting, mentioned below), non–alcoholic beverages and drug advertisements. The most frequent themes in a sample of 190 advertisements were about relaxation, national symbolism, conformity, friendship and humor. Apart from that, there is a series of studies in this area being conducted, part of a program approved by FAPESP, but the first results will only be presented in approximately 1 year from now.

Many investigations carried out in several countries conclude that the effects of advertising on alcohol consumption by young people are mainly a consequence of exposure, appraisal and recognition (memory) that these individuals have about alcohol advertisements.²⁰ According to these parameters, a quick look at the existing data in the country already suggest the contribution that alcoholic beverage advertising may have on problems related to excessive alcohol consumption. A monthly survey performed by Datafolha and regularly published in the magazine Meio e Mensagem for reference of advertising professionals shows that two to three beer brands have been among the 10 mostly remembered and appreciated advertisements by the public, independent of age group for many years. The probabilistic national survey on alcohol consumption patterns mentioned above, in a preliminary analysis, indicates that 78% of adolescents reported having been exposed to alcohol advertising almost every day, even more than once a day. These numbers reduced to 23% when asked about exposure to prevention programs, according to a survey carried out by the Unit of Research on Alcohol and Drugs (UNIAD), at the Brazilian Anti–Drug Agency (SENAD) (personal communication). It is important to mention that these data do not surprise, since millions are spent every year only in beer advertising investments (that is, in paying communication means) in Brazil.

Faced with that situation, what type of regulation is there in Brazil? The following section presents the situation of the Brazilian legislation and self–regulation of the advertising industry in relation to automobile and alcoholic beverage advertising.

Laws and basic regulations of brazilian advertising concerning alcohol and automobile advertising

As to Brazilian advertising regulation, among the laws and regulations concerning the theme under discussion, the following stand out: Brazilian Code of Advertising Self–Regulation (CONAR); Law 4680/65, regarding the exercise of advertising profession; Code of Ethics of Advertising Professionals (referred in article 17 of Law 4680/65); and the Brazilian Consumer Defense Code (CDC) – Law 8.078/90.²¹

The Code of Ethics of Advertising Professionals, for example, states that professionals, in order to reach their goals, should never induce people to error, neither use untruth or disseminate dishonesty and vice.²²

CDC²³ brings elements that concern both advertising of cars and alcohol. In some sections, CDC directly mentions advertising and prohibits every "deceitful or abusive advertising" able to, even by omission, induce to error regarding the nature, characteristics or any other data about products or services that encourage violence or a harmful or dangerous behavior to people's health or safety. About the latter aspect, in fact, it states the obligation of a supplier of products and services to clearly and abundantly disclosure information related to the characteristics, composition and risks that products have – particularly those potentially harmful or dangerous to health or safety.

Besides the norms presented above, it is important to mention the Federal Law 9.294, from 1996, which brings more specific rules concerning alcoholic beverage advertising and also regulates drugs, agricultural products and tobacco. This law, however, only considers alcoholic beverages those with an alcoholic strength higher than 13 ºGL, i.e., EXCLUDING beer (by far, the alcoholic product that spends the most on advertising) and most wines. Its main contribution, concerning alcoholic beverages (with the restriction mentioned above), is restricting the time for broadcasting the television commercials – between 9 pm and 6 am. Vignettes, however, are allowed at any time. A new law, number 10.167, was approved in 2000 to replace the aforesaid law. This regulation basically prohibited the advertising of tobacco in all types of media, except at outlets. Despite this new law not including alcohol in its text, it seems clear that from then on the political climate towards alcoholic beverage advertising has also changed. There is currently a large number of law projects suggesting varied restriction levels.

Besides the official legislation, Brazilian advertising is regulated, as mentioned above, by CONAR. As observed in other countries, the Brazilian advertising sector has become organized and, since the 1980's, started issuing rules of internal "behavior," as an attempt to avoid external interference (that is, the Government). This code is updated (according to society trends, political situation, what occurred in other countries, etc.) at every few years. Besides its general body, the code has appendixes concerning specific products. As to the products discussed herein, there are currently three appendixes ("A", "P" and "T) for alcoholic beverages and one ("O") for automotive vehicles.

CONAR's code for alcoholic beverages is more specific than the federal legislation. Besides referring to all types of alcoholic beverages (including beer), it proposes norms that have a clearer content and includes the obligation of adding a warning message in relation to excessive consumption of any advertisement. The basic remains the same; that is, beer and wine are still exempt from schedule limitation that other beverages have to obey. In appendix "O," concerning advertising of automotive vehicles, the code prohibits suggestions of using the vehicle that could put the user's or other people's personal safety at risk, such as takeovers not permitted in highways, speed excess, lack of safety accessories, disrespect to signaling, to pedestrians and to traffic rules in general.

Entities associated with the advertising industry vehemently support self–regulation in this area, using arguments about freedom of speech, but in fact trying to avoid interference from the Government. But does self–regulation of advertising really work?

Self-regulation of advertising: beyond words

William Leiss, a specialist in risk–related social communication, claims, in a book organized by Rothe,²⁴ that, as a result of intense presence of mass communication in public life, there are concerns related to media impacts. Leiss summarizes the analyses of such impacts into two categories: intended and unintended effects. Among the former, those resulting from campaigns using commercials have been more frequently investigated, with the aim of subsidizing strategies of corporate investments. Unintended effects on the media – something that was not supposedly intended, but produced a given consequence – would be of interest for those in charge of public policies. In some countries, investigation of these effects can subsidize and serve as basis for controlling the media by imposed legislation or voluntarily by industries. Some examples are the promotion of anti–social conducts, sub–representation (for example: ethnic groups) or distorted representations of roles and stereotypes.

In the USA, despite the Federal Communications Commission (an agency that holds authority over the content of advertisements in American television networks) having determined that broadcasting companies should be guided by "public interest," arguments defending freedom of speech, as in Brazil, transform flagrant cases of promoting high–risk driving behaviors into routine.

Concerning the Brazilian case, CONAR, although being unknown by most Brazilians, receives complaints in which disrespect to the code is alleged (created by the agency itself). Concerning automobile advertising, out of nine trials verified by Santos & Enoki,¹⁵ in only three cases CONAR recommended changes in the commercial, whereas in the remaining cases the complaint was filed. What had been classified as transgression of traffic laws, from the viewers' perspective, was understood by the counselors as "creativity and ingenuity by advertising agencies." This fact has allowed the authors to question the exemption of the Ethics Council (which judges the complaints sent to CONAR), mostly comprised of members of advertising agencies, advertisers and media.

It is simple to verify that the questions raised by Santos & Enoki are not frivolous, based on an analysis of a series of commercials performed in their study. As an example, in a 31–second commercial of Audi 3, the vehicle cuts through a smoke curtain at high speed, in a wet street of an urban center, in scenes that interpose high–speed curves and inside a theater, where people are taking their seats. The subtitle, in fade out, announces: "Great operas do not admit one minute of delay." The advertisement, object of consumers' complaints, had its lawsuit dismissed by CONAR. It is hard, in this case, to know what is more outrageous: the image of a car at an urban street driving at 140 km/h or the report of this process claiming that there were no "elements confirming excessive speed." The most infamous part is perhaps the text written in tiny letters that quickly appears in the commercial: "Respect speed limits."

Judging that the explicitly announced speed is just an impression from brilliant "advanced cinematographic techniques" demonstrates how the tendencies of those in charge of the judgment make a difference. Regulations of the Canadian Radio–Television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) for beer and wine advertising aimed at establishing restrictions to certain images. According to the Canadian code, for example, it is forbidden to associate beverages to status symbols or directly or indirectly infer that social acceptance, personal success, business or sports victories can only be achieved, enlarged or reinforced through consumption of those products.

The aforementioned communicologist William Leiss (in Rothe)²⁴ refers studies related to concessions granted to this regulation. In those studies, comparison of the content of television advertisements using presumed intentions of the regulation proved to have had substantial fulfillment to the literal interpretation of many regulations. However, he argues, if some of the established requisites receive a wider interpretation, it could be said that there was considerable disobedience to current norms. According to Leiss, this is due to regulations, which, as a result of the necessity of covering a wide variety of situations, recur to a necessarily generalizing language (and, in a certain form, vague), facilitating the task of escaping from norms, especially for professional creative people working for advertising agencies.

The same cannot be said about alcohol advertising. By analyzing CONAR website, in which the lawsuits and results of many years are briefly presented, there are frequent complaints concerning disrespect for the code. In fact, only in 2005, 32 complaints were recorded, most of them concerning the beer industry. In most cases, complaints are presented by the industry itself, especially by competing beer industries. Reasons for complaining include those classified as being of "respectability" and "social responsibility." CONAR occasionally files its own complaints, but it is not always successful in prohibiting the alcohol commercial. Despite the large number of complaints and CONAR's concern with inspecting and reporting other cases, a quick analysis of recently broadcasted advertisements arouses doubts about the efficacy of self–regulation. For example, a double advertisement by Schincariol, announced in magazines, says that now people do not raise just one finger to ask for a beer (a reference to the gesture made by another beer brand), but the whole hand, asking for a round. The bureaucratic warning in the vertical of one of the pages to avoid excessive drinking is curious, due to the suggestion of consuming five bottles of beer. Similarly, although the code includes (quite imprecisely) an item to "avoid references to eroticism," a large number of advertisements include explicit references to sexuality (most of the times mixed with humor, which can be judged by some as reducing the role of eroticism).

Discussion

This article does not aim at – also due to space limitations – discussing to what extent the media promotes or only reproduces values. Also, we have no intention in attributing to advertisements traffic attitudes and behaviors and consumption of alcoholic beverages. However, huge amounts of money invested in the advertising of products such as beverages and automobiles show that sectors used to rigidly calculating allocation of resources would not dismiss such attention to advertising without being sure of their power of influence. Furthermore, as to alcoholic beverages, scientific studies have continuously demonstrated the role of advertising not only on social climate, but also on early and increased consumption behavior among young people.⁸

The political climate in Brazil concerning alcoholic beverage advertising seems to be gradually changing. Several sectors in the country slowly start to understand the impact of harmful alcoholic beverage consumption on health, economy and safety. As to public health, there is at least an organized movement by civil society entities, the Aliança Cidadã pelo Controle do Álcool (Citizenship Alliance for Alcohol Control – ACCA), whose goal is to approve laws limiting alcohol advertising in communication means an in sports, cultural and social events. Concerning official governmental measures, in 2003 an inter–ministerial committee was created to propose measures that could result in reduction of alcohol–related problems. Among these measures, it has been suggested the limitation of alcohol advertising, but nothing effectively different from what already was reality was put into practice. More recently, the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) has launched an edict for public consultation with the aim of restricting alcohol advertising. Such proposal, which is timid according to experts in this area, has been under attack by the alcohol and advertising industry through arguments concerning freedom of speech.

In the traffic, regarding deaths and injuries as "accidents" (resulting from casualty or destiny) compromises the treatment of this issue as something that implies responsibilities and cares. There is located punctual mobilization whenever someone violently dies in the traffic (for example: a community closes the street to protest, burning tires, or protests during the burial of a victim, demanding justice). But this issue is not always dealt with in a systematic or organized manner. There is still a certain condescendence if the author of the case is a celebrity. In Brasília, in 1996, the campaign Peace in the Traffic involved for the first time society, Government and media, resulting in a drastic reduction in the number of deaths and injuries in the traffic. This type of mobilization was repeated in other cities, at a lower scale and with different responses and obstacles, since safety measures also imply limitation of unrestricted mobility of many (speed controls, speed bumps, etc.). Promulgation of the new Brazilian traffic code in 1997 could be considered, to a certain extent, a form of organization of society (by means of its representatives in the Congress and by varied pressure groups) to achieve reduction in traffic violence. Some advances have effectively been achieved, but the situation is still far from ideal.

Anyhow, the numbers show that national measures are still insufficient to attack both problems and that impact on public health is very important. In a country with scarce resources, and especially little political will to deal with these situations, the huge advertising investment acquires more relevant outlines. The truth is that, in Brazil, we are still far from having a balance between preventive investments and encouragement to behaviors of alcohol consumption and traffic speed. Limited resources to promote education also suffer restrictions or detours from their original destinations. In this context, educators and communicators who work in favor of safety have a hard work to promote a review and reconstruction of values, going against the prevalence of rooted attitude patterns. Moreover, differently from commercial promotions (of cars and beverages), what is to be said in preventive campaigns is not always pleasant, and therefore it is not well received. It is, therefore, frustrating and counterproductive that, besides the difficulties inherent to this educative process, public policies have to face such an explicit and powerful counter–advertisement.

As to traffic safety, as well as in alcohol–related problems, it is common, concerning evaluation of strategies of preventive action and discussions that try to diagnosis "what works," to have wrong counterpositions between actions towards legal effort (limitations, inspection, repression and punitive sanctions) and educative actions. Clichéd arguments, such as those despising education, as well as those affirming that it is necessary to educate "instead" of punishing (unsurprisingly used by habitual infringers), avoid a better perception that repressive and educative actions are more complementary than antagonistic. Civility – it is worth remembering – is also made with repression. Not exactly using the survival–of–the–fittest brutal repression, but the type of repression that avoids such law to be established and that some occupy public space as they wish, threatening the integrity of other people. Marin & Queiroz¹², analyzing the situation of speed and traffic crashes in Brazil, claim that: "(...) Implementing a consistent program of traffic education ( ) is indispensable. It is also necessary to control advertising, whether it associates speed to vitality and health and that associating consumption of alcoholic beverages to freedom and pleasure" (p. 18).

It is worth stressing that, in nations that are far from suffering third–world complexes (and are not characterized by an anti–capitalist totalitarianism), it is legitimate to understand that a society has the right of defending what it considers to be harmful – and that this can be understood as more than only access to a television remote control. It is legitimate – and even desirable – that in democracy an activity should be self–regulated, and it is also legitimate to question whether corporate or financial interests are overcoming the interests of society as a whole.

Facilitating access to condoms, healthy foods and promoting tobacco–free environments are measures that help more than simply inform the population about the dangers of AIDS, cholesterol and smoking. As this view of health promotion has been gaining space along with actions that used to be limited to risk prevention focused on people's behaviors,²⁵ actions in traffic safety, before restricted to blaming victims for the tragedies, and those of alcohol consumption, before focused only on little effective (but popular) measures, such as prevention in schools, should also move towards not only promoting a safer society, but also a social environment based on preservation. Concerning this issue, the importance of communication means is reassured.

References

Received October 23, 2006.

Accepted March 27, 2007.

Financial support: FAPESP, projects 2003/06250–7 and 2004/13564–0.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  06 Sept 2007
• Date of issue
  Apr 2007

History

• Received
  23 Oct 2006
• Accepted
  27 Mar 2006