For the sake of appearances: alcohol industry CSR in Latin America region.

PELTZER, RAQUEL; PANTANI, DANIELA; PINSKY, ILANA; CREMONTE, MARIANA

Melbourne

Conferencia; Global Alcohol Policy Conference (GAPC); 2018

Background and Aims: This research identified and analyzed corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs undertaken by the alcohol industry in Latin America and the Caribbean. The need to study CSR in the alcohol field is justified by the influence of marketing on alcohol consumption, the role of alcohol corporations as a vector of non-communicable diseases, the expanded CSR activities of the industry into policy areas and the patterns of alcohol consumption in the region. Methods: Nine health experts from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay conducted a content analysis on 215 CSR activities using a standardized protocol.These activities were selected from the database maintained by the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking. The LEAD procedure (Longitudinal, Expert and All Data) was applied to verify the accuracy of industry-reported descriptions (N= 148).Results: The analysis after LEAD shows that 60% of the actions were found to have the potential to market specific products or brands of alcoholic drinks. More than half of the actions were carried out in four countries: Brazil (24.7%), Mexico (18.1%), Argentina (10.2%) and Chile (7.4%). Government involvement was observed in 42.6% of the activities. The majority (86.5 %) were actions proved by empirical evidence to be non-effective or lacked evidence of effectiveness according to alcohol literature.Conclusion: While these efforts seem laudable at first, the results question the quality and added value of CSR activities run by the alcohol industry in the region, and suggest they are being used in part to market the industry?s products.