1. THE MEDIA USED

Press Publicity -

This special campaign was opened by the Chief Medical Officer at his Press Conference on the 1st October, 1941. Every opportunity was taken of securing editorial space wherever possible, but newspapers were very chary about mentioning coughs, sneezes and handkerchiefs directly, and editorial publicity was on a small scale. In the daily papers three advertisements in the “What do I do” spaces were issued - What Do I Do If I Get A Cough”, “What Do I Do If I Get A Cold”, and “What Do I Do To Avoid Spreading Flu’, Coughs and Colds” - in October, November and December, respectively. The three slogans which formed the basis of the campaign - “Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases”, “Trap the Germs By Using Your Handkerchief”, and “Help to Keep the Nation Fighting Fit” - were used in advertising space by some commercial organisations. Several articles, written by Dr. Kennedy and by Dr. Clegg, for the Central Council of Health Education, appeared in the Ministry of Information clip sheet.

Posters and Leaflets

A total of 80,000 posters was produced; these including four different Bateman cartoons, which showed scenes in the factory, tube, shop and the office, for exhibition in buses, trams and Underground trains, at main line railway stations, and in branches of the multiple drug stores: Boots, Whites and Taylors. Small supplies of the Bateman cartoons were sent to the Medical Officers of Health for exhibition in Maternity and Child Welfare Clinics, tuberculosis dispensaries, council offices, etc. Vehicle cards appeared throughout the L.P.T.B. system and re exhibited provincially. A supplementary poster “The British Public Is Not To Be Sneezed At” was posted in the Underground and at main line railway stations, productions of the photographs of a sneeze with and without a handkerchief which are used for this poster also formed part of the special set of posters produced for the Ministry of Information’s National Window Display Scheme.

The Central Council for Health Education co-operated in the production of all these posters and leaflets, and through them 6,000 of the Window Display Scheme sets were sent to 90 Local Education Authorities, 190 sets to 75 industrial concerns and 110 in answer to miscellaneous requests. The Council also sold (mainly to local authorities) 17,800 copies of a leaflet on influenza, 10,900 copies of another leaflet on droplet infection, and 115,850 pamphlets on health in the shelter (intended for distribution to the regular users of public air raid shelters). Of the double crown posters produced by the Council 111 copies of one on influenza and 652 of one on droplet infection were sold to local authorities. In addition 215 sets each of five complementary posters on influenza intended for exhibition on the hoardings erected by the Empire Marketing Board and now in the possession of local authorities were disposed of and 354 similar sets on droplet infection.

Films:

A non-theatrical sound film entitled “Breath of Danger” was produced by the C.C.H.E. and accepted by the M.O.I. for inclusion in their organisation of road cinema shows. The film was also put on loan from the C.C.H.E. and the Central Film Library and was borrowed 826 times and shown to a total audience of 284,500. A trailer featuring Cyril Fletcher giving one of his “Odd Odes” on “Sneezing” was prepared by the Films Division of the M.O.I. appended to new reels and exhibited in cinemas from 19th January, 1942.

Other Publicity

A Ministry of Health circular drawing attention to the campaign and to all existing material was issued in October 1941 to County Councils, County Borough Councils, and Maternity and Child Welfare Authorities. Some local activity on the subject seems to have been conducted by a few Medical Officers of Health, but very much less than in the Diphtheria Immunisation Campaign, and we have no record of local authorities’ activities. Only the M.O.H. of Bristol can be referred to positively in this connection. The Board of Education drew the attention of local Education Authorities to the campaign in a circular, and 90 authorities borrowed the Window Display sets referred to above. The Local Government Chronicle of the 11th October, 1941, gave their account of the object of the campaign. On a rather different plane Val Green wrote a “Sneezing Song” which was broadcast and went into pantomine at Blackpool.

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2. SLOGANS

People were asked if they had seen or heard any of the slogans used in the autumn Health Campaign. The four slogans were read over to them by the investigator. 79% said they remembered one or more of the slogans, and 21% that they could not remember having seen or heard any of them

The slogan remembered by the largest number was “Coughs and Sneezes spread Diseases”. The North of England seemed more conscious of this propaganda. On two slogans “Trap the germs by using your handkerchief” and “Help to keep the Nation fighting Fit” the Midlands and Wales area had considerably fewer remembering than other regions.

Analysing the results by sex and age shows no practical difference between the results for men and women, but that younger people tended to remember the slogans more than older people (over 50).

Some check on the validity of these replies is provided by the analysis on Question 5. it was shown there that about 75% of the sample when asked how colds were spread gave answers implying that colds were spread by infection. This compares with 72 % of the sample remembering one or other of the slogans.

The analysis by groups on Question 5 shows too that more of the younger age groups (under 50’s) than of the older group gave this answer.

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3. EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT MEDIA

Further questions sought to measure the import of the various media used to bring the message to the Public’s attention.

Films

Informants were asked if they remembered seeing any films about coughs and sneezes. About 18% said they had, 54% said they had not, and 28% said they did not go to the cinema. Those who said they had seen films about coughing and sneezing were asked what the films were. Their replies are given by regions in the following table:-

From which it is seen that 5% of people were able to identify the Cyril Fletcher trailer, 3% mentioned the “mask over face” factory film, about 1% mentioned the proprietory disinfectant advertisement slides, and some 8% mentioned other health films, or could not recall the name or content of the film they had seen.

The regional differences are not significant.

Posters

Informants were next asked if they had seen any posters about coughs and sneezes, and were shown Photostat copies of the four Bateman coloured cartoons, the Droplet Infection poster and the Vehicle Card. Regionally, the replies here:-

Still shown the set of photostat copies, people were asked to say which they thought were the most effective as posters. The replies were:

These figures show uniformity of opinion between the sexes and between the social classes, the differences not being significant.

To the question: “Which do you prefer, humorous or serious posters?” the replies were:-

Asked why they preferred humorous or Serious posters, people answered:

Newspaper and magazine article on keeping fit

Newspapers . To the question “Are there any regular articles on keeping fit in your newspaper?” the replies were as given in the table below. The figures need interpretation in the light of the difficulty experienced by informants in answering the question, as shown by the result that 30% of people said they had noticed regular articles; the volume of such articles in the press is much less than is implied by this result. The difficulty arose partly from a general misconception of what was implied by “regular articles”, and partly from a widespread tendency, noted previously in this report, to confuse information on “keeping fit” with information on what steps to take when one is actually ill. Those who answered “yes” to this question may therefore have meant that they occasionally or frequently noticed in their newspapers, paragraphs, short articles, food announcements which link up with health, or advertisements relating to any aspect of health.

Those who replied “Yes” were asked if they read the articles:

Those who replied “No” were asked if they would read such articles if they were a regular feature in their newspaper. The replies were:

The reasons given by people who said they would not read articles on keeping fit if they were regular features in their newspapers were:

Magazines

People were also asked if there were regular articles on keeping fit in the magazines or periodicals they read:

“Are there any regular articles on keeping fit in the magazines or periodicals you read?”

If “Yes”, do you, read them?”

“What do I do,....?”

People were further asked if they had noticed in their newspaper any of the “What do I do...?” announcements relating to health matters. If “Yes”, what were the announcements about? The replies are as follows:-

Leaflets

The replies to the question:”Have you been given any leaflets about health?” were:

there being no significant differences between men and women, or between the urban and rural areas. Those who replied “Yes” were asked what were the subjects of the leaflets :

Radio

People were next asked if they remembered any radio announcements or talks about health. The replies were:

This proportion who remember radio talks on health matters is uniform throughout the sample, there being no significant differences between the men and women, or between urban and rural areas.

Those who replied “Yes” to the question were asked what the talks were about. The replies are:

Some doubt is cast on the validity of answers where people who say that they know of particular type of publicity are unable to identify the content. Of course, the multiplicity of appeals to the public these days makes it much more difficult to identify the contents of any particular appeal, but the impact of the appeal is probably much less definite where there is no such identification.

The following figures extracted from previous tables are therefore repeated so that full consideration is given to this fact.

Public Meetings

In order to provide a further index of the awareness of the importance of maintaining health the following questions were put: “Have you the time to go to a public talk on the War situation, Gardening, Keeping healthy, Cookery, or on technical subjects?” This was followed by “If you have time, which subject would interest you most?” The proportion choosing health talks provides an index of comparative interest with the other subjects.

The replies to the first of these questions were:

There is no significant difference between the replies of outdoor and indoor workers, or between the urban and rural areas. 29% of married people said they had time to go to a public talk as against 39% of single and 38% of widowed persons.

Those who said they had time to go were asked the second of these questions - what subject would interest them most: