Differences in the perception of a mass media information campaign on drug and alcohol consumption

The two-month mass media campaign in Belgium on drug and alcohol consumption "Alcohol and other drugs. The facts and fictions" initiated in January 2008 has been evaluated shortly after by a phone survey. This article reports some indicators on the public awareness of the campaign, and the differences in the perception according to age groups and education levels. About 1,000 respondents (n = 1,002) accepted to participate in the campaign evaluation. Response rate is 37.1%. Global perception of the campaign - measured by the capacity to identify the campaign adequately - is 18.8%. This perception varies between age groups and education levels: 30% of the youngest age group (14-35 yrs) have seen the campaign, 13% of people aged 56 and over (p<0.001). The lower the education level, the lower the probability to have seen the campaign (11% in the lowest group, 25% in the highest one, p<0.001). Among the respondents who have seen the campaign, newspapers are the most often cited media for the oldest age groups. Inversely, young people have mainly identified the campaign on street boards or on post cards. The privileged type of media is also function of the education level. People belonging to the lowest educational level report more often to have seen the campaign on TV (85% vs 51% in the highest group, p<0.01), while the reverse is true for seeing the campaign via the newspapers or the street boards. The results indicate that there are socio-economic variations in the perception of the campaign. In health promotion, reaching lower socio-economic groups still remains a real challenge. Channels for such campaigns have to be carefully chosen to reach their target groups and ask to be complemented with community based interventions.