Throwback Special

Jonas Salk's discovery and successful implementation of a polio vaccine eradicated polio from the United States. The polio vaccine became standard for EVERY child born in the United States, so standard, that polio is no longer a concern for parents in the U.S.

So, how was this new health standard integrated into the American psyche? Here's some throwback footage to one of the first fully integrated health marketing campaigns.

Community events, television coverage, and a celebrity spokesperson (Franklin D. Roosevelt) worked to educate American's on the importance of vaccination. Vaccinations against preventable diseases for children became part of the American way.

The polio vaccine campaign, "Victory over Polio" , was one of the first successful public health campaigns in the United States, thanks in part to the March of Dimes. This campaign set the pace for health communication strategies in the United States until technology began to set the pace in the 1990's with the invention of cell phones, the internet, and social media.