Fighting AIDS Among Adolescent Women: Effects of a Public Communication Campaign in Brazil

Abstract

In 2003, Brazil's Ministry of Health launched a national campaign aimed at promoting the use of condoms by adolescent women. The Carnival Campaign was broadcast on television and radio between February 16 and March 3 and targeted young women, between 13 and 19 years of age, a social group that previously had registered a growth in the number of cases of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The Ministry hired Kelly Key, a Brazilian pop singer, to deliver the campaign messages. One of the objectives was to empower the girls and encourage them not to be ashamed to buy condoms and to demand that their partners use them. The article presents the results of a national survey conducted with 1,006 adolescent women, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Health. The results show that campaign materials reached the main target public and that they were very positively received. Moreover, the survey data show that the Carnival Campaign had important effects, generating discussions in the adolescents' social environments and reinforcing a social norm that favors the participation of women in the purchase and use of condoms.

I am thankful to the National Coordination of STD and AIDS of Brazil's Ministry of Health for the collaboration in the development of this project and for allowing me to use data from the survey. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Health Communication for their critical comments.

Notes

∗As far as social class is concerned, the differences are statistically significant in the cases of television, billboards (p < .000), and posters (p < .01), but not in the case of radio (chi-square test).

∗∗As far as region is concerned, the differences are statistically significant in the cases of radio (p < .000), TV (p < .002), and billboards (p < .05), but not in the case of posters (chi-square test).

∗The sum of percentages for each medium is higher then 100% because respondents could mention more than one item.

Notes: B = estimated coefficients; s.e. = standard errors;

∗ = p < .05

∗∗ = p < .01

∗∗∗ = p < .001.