**1. Introduction**

Traffic crashes represent a problem with a high economic, social and health-related impact on the population [1]. The latest data recorded by World Health Organization indicate that traffic accidents are the eighth leading cause of death worldwide, explaining almost 1.4 million fatalities yearly [2].

This situation is even more serious in emerging countries, if several existing shortcomings and gaps are considered. In brief, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are characterized by having an average low per capita income and a very limited advancement in their development and infrastructure and human development. Even so, economic growth, industrialization, and exportation have been rising with globalization dynamics, often implying unexpected (or *unplanned*) problems for key sectors such as transportation [3]. Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic are some noteworthy examples [4]. Emerging countries have a traffic accident death rate of 29.4 per 100,000 inhabitants compared to the world rate of 18.8 per 100,000 inhabitants [5].

For the past few years, the Dominican Republic has been the country with the highest number of fatal victims in traffic accidents. The death rate of traffic accidents fluctuates, but it has been stable at over 20 for every 100,000 inhabitants since 2008 [6]. These data make

**Citation:** Alonso, F.; Faus, M.; Fernández, C.; Useche, S.A. "Where Have I Heard It?" Assessing the Recall of Traffic Safety Campaigns in the Dominican Republic. *Energies* **2021**, *14*, 5792. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/en14185792

Academic Editor: Grzegorz Karo ´n

Received: 6 August 2021 Accepted: 10 September 2021 Published: 14 September 2021

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the Dominican Republic the country with the highest death rate from traffic accidents in the whole American continent [5].

Deaths related to traffic accidents are the second leading cause of external or violent death in the Dominican Republic. Thus, the data from the Permanent Observatory of Road Safety (Observatorio Permanente de Seguridad Vial—OPSEVI) have shown that the number of casualties caused by traffic accidents was 3204 in 2019 (the latest available data), with men between 15 and 29 years old as the population group with the highest rate [7].

In the past few years, from the National Institute of Traffic and Land Transportation (INTRANT, Domincan Republic), a set of measures have been developed, addressing the awareness of the population and the reduction in traffic crash rates in the country. Thus, new laws and norms have been approved within this scope, and actions have been carried out to improve the public infrastructure and the conditions of public transportation, emphasizing the road education of citizens [8].

In this sense, communications campaigns are very relevant since they are an appropriate way of transmitting changes happening in the traffic and road safety field to the Dominican Republic population [9]. Without appropriate use of the media and advertising campaigns, it will be difficult to achieve a real change in the attitudes and behaviors of road users [10,11]. For this reason, the communication plans of the traffic sector throughout the whole world tend to produce advertisements with a high emotional impact, using fear as their persuasive element [12] in addition to using messages or slogans that, with their repetition through different media, manage to be remembered by users.

In the Dominican Republic, different communication campaigns were developed in the years 2018 and 2019, aimed at both at-risk groups (pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, etc.) and to the population as a whole. This is the case of "safe pedestrian action", "I use the bike", or "don't drive if you drank" [13]. The purpose of the traffic campaigns is to raise public awareness of road safety risk factors in order to reduce accidents and improve mobility, which will have a direct impact on reducing pollution and energy consumption [14].

Communication campaigns have been shown to have a certain level of effectiveness. It is difficult to isolate the impact of advertisements, as they are usually broadcast in conjunction with the implementation of other preventive measures [15]. However, previous research shows that campaign effectiveness significantly increases when they are used to complement regulations and sanctions [16,17]. Therefore, it is essential to make ads with appropriate features so that users remember the message and apply it in their journeys.

However, as has been previously mentioned, carrying out a campaign does not necessarily imply that the population will perceive and incorporate all the information that needs to be transmitted. Although recall is not the only important element in raising awareness among the population, it is a necessary first step in the process of acquiring appropriate road behavior. Therefore, the objective of this research is to find out to what extent the inhabitants of the Dominican Republic remember the communication and advertisement campaigns related to traffic, mobility, and road safety that have been carried out in recent years. Likewise, we will analyze whether there are population groups that are especially inclined to remember such advertisements, with the aim of improving the efficacy of future campaigns in the country.

After reviewing the literature and stating the objective of the study, the materials and methods used will be presented. Subsequently, the obtained results will be developed, and the data will be contrasted with other studies in this thematic area in the discussion. Finally, the most relevant conclusions will be presented.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

#### *2.1. Participants*

The sample was composed of 1260 adult inhabitants of the Dominican Republic. The sample distribution was proportional to the population, according to the ONE census (National Statistical Office), by age (*M* = 39.3; *SD* = 15.37), gender, habitat and province [18]

(Table 1). To obtain the necessary representativeness, the minimum sample size should be about n = 680 if we assume a level of confidence of 99%, a maximum margin of error of 5% (α = 0.05) and a beta β) of 0.20, which allows for an 80% power (Table 1). Participation was voluntary and anonymous. The personal information management was carried out in accordance with the current laws on data protection, complying with ethical requirements.


**Table 1.** Sociodemographic data of the study participants.

### *2.2. Design, Procedure and Instruments*

The data reported in this study were collected through the National Survey on Mobility of the Dominican Republic from the year 2019 [19]. The questionnaire included issues related to the knowledge of institutions and traffic laws, public transportation, private transportation, on-foot movements, bike use, ITS systems and measures, among which the variables of the present research are included. It is a pioneer questionnaire in Latin America, where such exhaustive and complete instruments have not been administered. It began to be administered in 2018 to assess the situation in the country and detect the evolution and changes in the way Dominicans move as a result of the implementation of the various initiatives carried out by INTRANT.

The survey was administered through personal, in-person interviews with a duration of approximately 20 min. The sample was obtained during a time span from 24 November to 7 December 2019. The gathering of information was carried out through a CAPI system (Computer Assisted Personal Interviews) on tablets, recording and geo-referencing the interviews, with the aim of expediting the duration of the interview and minimize any recording mistakes.

In order to achieve the proposed objectives, the following variables were taken into account:

