{"id":594512,"date":"2026-04-09T00:31:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T00:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/594512\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T00:31:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T00:31:20","slug":"from-a-vaccine-mascot-to-business-leadership-lessons-for-the-us-from-brazils-public-health-system-in-building-public-trust-and-keeping-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/594512\/","title":{"rendered":"From a vaccine mascot to business leadership, lessons for the US from Brazil\u2019s public health system in building public trust and keeping it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Public health institutions are under threat by populist governments across the globe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From Budapest<\/a> to Jakarta, Indonesia<\/a>, public health agencies are being stripped of funding and independence. Meanwhile, disinformation has sown distrust in scientific experts. The results are already visible through the return of diseases once thought eliminated or controlled, like measles<\/a> and whooping cough<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The United States is no exception to this trend. Since Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services in February 2025, he has fired over 10,000 staff<\/a>, cut budgets and attempted to gut childhood vaccine recommendations<\/a>. Though medical and public health groups have pushed back with some success<\/a>, key government health institutions face a leadership vacuum<\/a>, and national public health policy has fractured into \u201chealth alliances<\/a>\u201d formed by groups of states. <\/p>\n

Doctors and scientists across the country worry about long-term damage<\/a> to the country\u2019s health system. <\/p>\n

As a researcher studying the politics of health care<\/a>, I believe it\u2019s helpful to look to countries that have successfully managed similar threats. As my co-authors and I have argued<\/a>, Brazil\u2019s experience offers insights into how public health institutions can preserve power and authority in the face of assault.<\/p>\n

Much like the U.S., Brazil has a fragmented and polarized Congress<\/a>, it has powerful self-interested lobbies<\/a>, and it has a federal system of government. And much like in the U.S., health outcomes suffer from stark race and income gaps<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But when a populist president attacked the Brazilian health care system during COVID-19<\/a>, the public successfully rallied to its defense<\/a><\/p>\n

\"People<\/a><\/p>\n

Former President Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s administration, from 2019 to 2022, shook Brazilians\u2019 long-held trust in vaccines and public health.
\n Sergio Lima\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

A health system under attack<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s health system<\/a>, established in its current form in 1990, provides free universal health care to all its citizens. Despite some significant flaws<\/a>, including unequal access to care in poor and rural areas<\/a>, its focus on preventive care is widely considered a model worldwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prior to the administration of right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, from 2019 to 2022, Brazilians had trust in vaccines. They had what public health experts call a vaccine culture, thanks to the hard work of health workers who had spent years promoting them<\/a> and making them easily accessible<\/a>. Vaccines even had a beloved national mascot<\/a> in Z\u00e9 Gotinha (Joe Droplet), a cartoon vaccine droplet with a Pillsbury Doughboy-like visage.<\/p>\n

When COVID-19 hit Brazil in March 2020, Bolsonaro \u2013 dubbed by many as the \u201cTrump of the Tropics<\/a>\u201d \u2013 launched unprecedented attacks on Brazil\u2019s vaccine program<\/a>. Among other measures, he fired the senior leadership of the health ministry and appointed as minister an active-duty military officer with no health credentials<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A walking vaccine droplet named Z\u00e9 Gotinha \u2013 Joe Droplet \u2013 is Brazil\u2019s vaccine mascot.
\n Vinicius Loures\/C\u00e2mara dos Deputados via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/p>\n

Bolsonaro\u2019s attacks on the vaccine program<\/a> \u2013 a backbone of Brazil\u2019s preventive health efforts \u2013 were especially strong. He pressured Brazil\u2019s drug regulatory agency to ban pediatric vaccines<\/a>. He blocked resources for vaccine procurement<\/a>, and he spread misinformation, notoriously suggesting the vaccine could give people AIDS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After Bolsonaro\u2019s initial attacks on Brazil\u2019s COVID-19 response efforts, the entire health system appeared on the verge of collapse<\/a>. However, Brazil\u2019s public health workers then marshaled broad support to defend their vaccine program.<\/p>\n

Opposition governors offered important but limited help<\/a> by producing their own vaccine guidance and procuring their own vaccines. But political support, on its own, couldn\u2019t overcome Bolsonaro\u2019s attacks.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Brazil\u2019s vaccine program depended not just on independence, but also on resources to operate. And governments with an anti-science bent have many ways to deprive even well-established agencies of resources without broad congressional approval.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s vaccine program ultimately survived because allies outside government stepped in to defend it not only with political advocacy, but by donating money and resources and with social activism.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Jair Bolsonaro launched an attack against Brazil\u2019s health system during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Business leaders to the rescue<\/p>\n

Businesses filled gaps in government resources with donations of private-sector funding. Two business coalitions gave a total of over 270 million real (US$54 million) to help two public laboratories, the Institute of Technology in Immunobiology<\/a>, known as BioManguinhos, and the Butantan Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the largest foundations in Brazil, the Lemann Foundation, paid for AstraZeneca\u2019s clinical trials<\/a> in Brazil. Ambev, one of the largest firms in South America, lent its logistics team<\/a> to help BioManguinhos acquire supplies and equipment.<\/p>\n

Women of Brazil<\/a>, a nonpartisan network of female business leaders, even built a campaign called United for the Vaccine<\/a> to help towns and cities acquire the vaccine distribution equipment they needed. They provided local health officials with cheap supplies, like coolers and refrigerators, as well as costlier investments, such as boats and even planes for carrying vaccines to the isolated communities of the Amazon. <\/p>\n

As pulmonologist Margareth Dalcolmo<\/a>, who consulted for United for the Vaccine, emphasized to me in an interview: \u201cAll their requests were met, without one cent of government money being used.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the ground up<\/p>\n

Another hugely important component of defending Brazil\u2019s vaccine program was support from trusted local grassroots groups.<\/p>\n

When vaccines became available, community-based groups across the country jumped in to combat disinformation with their own locally produced information campaigns \u2013 especially in underserved communities. <\/p>\n

One group I spoke to distributed 5,000 informational posters across their neighborhood. Another, Tamo Junto Rocinha<\/a>, or We\u2019re in it Together Rocinha, published a book with lessons for kids to do with their parents while school was canceled \u2013 all with vaccination information embedded. Voz das Comunidades, or Voice of the Communities, a neighborhood news service, even created a smartphone application<\/a> to combat misinformation while also notifying community members of daily death tallies.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A long-term investment in building trust in public health helped fuel the groundswell of support for COVID-19 vaccine efforts.
\n Mauro Pimentel\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

So many grassroots groups organized to counter Bolsonaro\u2019s attacks on COVID-19 vaccines that researchers began to map the campaigns bubbling up across the country. By early 2021, one map had identified over 1,300 grassroots efforts<\/a> and over 800 organized by universities.<\/p>\n

By August 2022, despite Bolsonaro\u2019s disinformation campaigns, 81% of Brazil\u2019s adult population was fully vaccinated against COVID-19. These vaccination rates<\/a> equaled those of New Zealand and the Netherlands and were well above that of the United States, where only 67% were fully vaccinated at the time.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that Brazil was immune to disinformation campaigns. Vaccination rates for some diseases, such as measles, declined<\/a>, as they have across the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But in many ways, the attacks on Brazil\u2019s vaccine program paradoxically strengthened it. By the end of 2022, thanks to donor support, BioManguinhos had already built a new testing laboratory, and Butantan was constructing a new vaccine production facility. Brazil even had a new national health surveillance institute<\/a>. By 2024, once Bolsonaro was voted out, overall spending on the health system had increased from the prior year by 27%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Playing the long game with public health<\/p>\n

In my view, these emergency countermeasures in Brazil worked effectively because the country had already spent years building a foundation of trust in \u2013 and ownership of \u2013 the shared goals of its public health system.<\/p>\n

Decades ago, in the 1980s, Brazilians successfully demanded that their politicians make health care accessible<\/a> to all \u2013 driving the genesis of the country\u2019s universal public health system, known by the acronym SUS.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s health ministry continues to invest heavily in making sure citizens take ownership of it. Cities and towns are postered with signs declaring \u201cSUS is ours!\u201d or \u201cHealth care is your right!\u201d <\/p>\n

As I found in my recent research in Brazil, this kind of advertising makes people feel their institutions are an earned right and reduces the power of partisan messaging.<\/p>\n

Brazil also invests in integrating health workers into the communities they serve and cultivating public trust in their expertise. Government health care workers routinely set up shop in public plazas to advertise cancer screenings or give vaccinations. They regularly visit schools, where doctors or nurses talk to young people in accessible language about what the nation\u2019s public health system offers its citizens. As one health care worker told me: \u201cIt\u2019s like they are constantly saying, \u2018Look, the doors are open. You can come. You\u2019ll be seen and supported.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

These long-term relationships between communities and the public health system helped lay the groundwork in Brazil for mounting a unified defense when political turbulence threatened public health agencies. Worldwide, a long-term view toward building or strengthening these relationships may help the public embrace the idea that public health institutions are worth defending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Public health institutions are under threat by populist governments across the globe. From Budapest to Jakarta, Indonesia, public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-594512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}