Disease Awareness Advertising

Encyclopedia Term: Disease Awareness Advertising

Disease Awareness Advertising (DAA) is when a pharmaceutical company promotes a disease or condition without mentioning any specific products or brands. Many people in the United States are familiar with a similar type of advertising—direct to consumer advertising (DTCA)—which differs from disease awareness advertising in that it allows the mention of specific products or brand as a treatment option. However, DTCA is only allowed in the United States and New Zealand and so Disease Awareness Advertising has arisen as a way to continue promoting pharmaceutical products while avoiding specific mentions of a product or brand (Hall 2009, 61). Disease Awareness Advertising and Direct to Consumer Advertising have almost identical intentions—to get the consumer to ask their doctor for a specific drug— but they differ on a few key points that will be discussed in further detail later.

While Disease Awareness Advertising means that pharmaceuticals cannot mention any specific products or producers, this type of advertising is not highly regulated in most countries. In 2006, The World Health Organization cited that fewer than one-sixth of countries had a well-developed system of drug regulation and one-third of countries had little to no regulatory capacity (WHO 2004). Since DAA arose as a result of regulatory loopholes, many governments haven’t established strict requirements and regulation tends to be lenient. Peter Mansfield cites a tension that exists for governments between providing business friendly environments to lure investors and maintaining public health needs (Mansfield 2005, 6). Therefore, this term relates to the politics of health because it highlights this pressure that governments have in providing a balance between capitalism and population health. Furthermore, DAA demonstrates the power that pharmaceutical companies can have on modern day society and its health status.

Even though pharmaceutical companies aren’t allowed to mention any specific products or brands in Disease Awareness Advertising, companies find ways around this ban. For example, ads sponsored by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that produces Viagra, don’t mention Viagra specifically but will have the iconic Pfizer tiger in the ad. While Viagra isn’t explicitly stated, the company is still promoted because the tiger is associated with Pfizer (Hall 2009, 61). Ads that push the regulatory limits, like the Pfizer one, occasionally receive resistance. A 1993 Novartis campaign that ran in the Netherlands for terbinafine, a migraine medication, prompted patients to ask their doctor about a “surprisingly effective” new treatment. While this was technically an unbranded television advertisement because neither Novartis nor terbinafine were mentioned by name, the ad increased consultations for onychomycosis and prescribing of terbinafine. The net result was a decrease in business of Novartis’ competitor (Mansfield 2005, 6). The government of the Netherlands took Novartis to court but lost because the Dutch court ruled that no regulations were broken because Novartis and terbinafine were not specifically named (Sheldon 2002, 355).

Controversies that surround Disease Awareness Advertising are similar to those that surround Direct to Consumer Advertising. Some believe that DAA is beneficial to the patient because it educates them on diseases and keeps them updated with current treatments (Hall 2009, 61). However, many fear that DAA will encourage healthy patients to seek unnecessary care, especially since the actual intent of the ad is hidden. Concerns surround the idea that the DAA come across as a community service and the capitalistic intent behind the ad is hidden (Hall 2009, 61). However, a study done by Hall found that 72% of Australians, a country where DAA is used, agreed that disease awareness advertising was designed to sell more medicine or medical products (Hall 2009, 65). This statistic shows that Australians are aware of the profit motive behind DAA and therefore not wrongly interpreting these ads as community service. Hall’s study also found that 80% of respondents believed that DAA educates people on diseases, conditions, and possible treatment options and 62% believed that the purpose of DAA was to increase positive health behaviors (Hall 2009, 64). In regards to the concern that DAA will cause healthy people to utilize unneeded care, 40% of respondents believed that DAA was designed to make the disease seem more important than it actually was or to increase visits to the doctor (Hall 2009, 65). Hall’s study also compared DAA to DTC and found that New Zealand respondents were almost twice is likely to report being confused by DTC advertisements (Hall 2009, 66). This increase in confusion around DTC ads is most likely due to that fact that information about specific drugs are included, which by nature are more confusing to the average consumer. Finally, Hall found that consumers in New Zealand believed that DTC ads were more likely to rely on medicine as a treatment option while consumers in Australia felt that DAA was more likely to promote healthy living values (Hall 2009, 66). Further concerns about DAA, distinct from DTC, are that companies with get around the ban against mentioning brand names or medications by promoting logos or characters, like the Pfizer tiger discussed earlier.

This term relates to the politics of health because it shows the power that pharmaceutical companies have in manipulating the market and controlling consumer perceptions of health, even in the face of regulation. The close relation of DAA to DTC shows the little effect that governments can have when trying to impose regulation, as shown in the court case with Novartis in the Netherlands. Pharmaceutical companies are able to find loopholes and push the limits of government regulation due to this tension between capitalism and public health that Mansfield discussed.

Works Cited

Hall, Danika V., Jones, Sandra C., and Janet Hoek. 2011. “Direct to consumer advertising versus disease awareness advertising: consumer perspectives from down under.”  Journal of Public Affairs 11: 60-69. Accessed February 19, 2017.  DOI: 10.1002/pa.379.

Mansfield, Peter R., Mintzes, Barbara, Richards, Dee, and Les Toop. 2005.  “Direct to consumer advertising is at the crossroads of competing pressures from industry and health needs.” The BMJ. 330: 5-6. Accessed February 20, 2017.

Sheldon, Tony. 2002. “Dutch GPs call for ban on Novartis products.”  The BMJ. 325: 355. Accessed February 20, 2017.

World Health Organization. 2004. “The World Medicines Situation Report.”  Accessed February 21, 2017. http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/world_medicines_situation/en/