Audio Slideshow: Coughs and Sneezes...

In this audio slideshow posted on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website, Dr. Laragh Gollogly from the World Health Organization (WHO) narrates a collection of posters from past decades that show the ways governments and doctors have tried - using strategies ranging from fear to humour - to get health messages across to the public and to persuade them to take action. The public health campaigns from which these images are drawn cover issues such as practising safe sex, eating healthily, getting children to brush their teeth, immunising against polio, small pox, and measles, and wearing sunscreen.

Dr. Gollogly notes that successful posters tell people what to do, but that this is not a universal message. The information and strategy must be particular to a country, a context - there needs to be an understanding of a specific language, of specific desires, of specific fears.

In reviewing posters from 100 years ago, Dr. Gollogly notes that the focus after World War II was on tuberculosis and alcoholism. She moves on to look at a strategy for health campaigns around polio vaccination in the 1950s, which used a much more emotive approach. The posters she explores here prey on the guilt and fear of parents, with the purpose of engaging people and stirring emotions in order to get them to do whatever the campaign needs to have done.

Again looking back to the 1950s, she looks at topical differences - the "gospel of the clean plate" is in stark contrast to messages of today, which focus on trying to curb the obesity epidemic by getting people to eat less and exercise more. On the other hand, if we compare the recent onslaught of public health communication related to the H1N1 pandemic, we see the same messages in the 1950s ("a handerchief in time saves nine lives").

Dr. Gollogly also explores the strategy of stigmatisation in persuasive health communication endeavours, pointing to posters in the 1940s that were designed to prevent syphillis. In these posters, women are depicted as agents of evil. Men are urged to stay away. Now that HIV is a major focus, she notes that we have moved away from infected people being stigmatised toward the use of humour to try to get people to adopt preventive behaviours - citing, for example, a campaign using sport imagery with the message that "smart players always wear 'socks'".

The presentation notes an example of selling toothpaste, for which one might look at sales figures as indicators of whether or not the "target audience" is buying what is being advertised. But, in public health, if the message involves trying to get mothers to persuade their children to brush their teeth, for example, measurement is much more difficult. In concluding, the presentation stresses that it is challenging to gauge impact in public health campaigns.

Editor's note: This slide show is based on the book Public Health Campaigns: Getting the Message Across, which covers the world's public health posters in the 6 official United Nations (UN) languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, English, Russian, and Spanish).