Campaigns to combat Aedes aegypti in the Amazon region: an analysis of visual attention with the use of eye tracker

Abstract

In addition to two important endemic diseases present in Brazil (dengue and chikungunya), the country has faced in recent years another problem linked to the mosquito Aedes aegypti: the Zika virus and one of its consequences, microcephaly. In this scenario, despite its many challenges, risk communication emerges as a key strategy to assist in the fight against these diseases. This article aims to analyze how campaigns advertised in the Amazon region to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquito are perceived by individuals. To do so, it was observed, with the aid of eye tracker, how elements of the campaign, such as the title, images, and texts, besides the identification of the advertisers, were able to attract the visual attention of the participants. The main results show that the saliency of the elements, associated with their disposition in the campaign, were able to modulate the visual attention of the participants, evidencing that (i) the eye tracking methodology was pertinent to the studies of risk communication and (ii) there are bottlenecks in the planning process for these contents, which directly impact the attention given to them.