Immunization Posters and Slogans

Vincent Iannelli, MD

9 years ago

Getting your kids vaccinated and protected is a good idea.

Vaccines are safe, necessary, and they work.

Why do we need posters and slogans to help educate people about their benefits?

A vaccine billboard in Minnesota educates parents about a benefit of vaccines – protecting those who rely on herd immunity.

Maybe because as long as there have been vaccines, there have been anti-vaccine slogans scaring parents away from them.

Immunization posters are also a good way to raise awareness of new vaccines and new recommendations for getting vaccinated.

Educating Parents About Vaccines

In the early 1980s, vaccine preventable diseases had come roaring back as folks in England and other countries got scared to vaccinate and protect their kids with the DTP vaccine.

This immunization slogan, during a whooping cough epidemic, reminded parents to get their kids vaccinated now.

It is reported that “public confidence in the pertussis vaccine collapsed in the early 1970s as a result of widely publicized concern about its safety and campaigns for compensation for children damaged by the vaccine.”

It got so bad that as vaccination rates fell to less than 30% in 1978, there were at least 154 deaths and 17 cases of brain damage in the UK because of pertussis infections, even though the concerns about the pertussis vaccine were widely unfounded.

“While You Make Up Your Mind About Whooping Cough Vaccination, Thousands Of Children Are Holding Their Breath” was an effective poster at this time. It highlighted the fact that you could sometimes wait too long to get your kids vaccinated, as pertussis cases and deaths grew during the outbreaks.

Vaccination rates eventually went up again, as parents made up their mind to vaccinate and protect their kids.