HHS launches vaccine ad campaign targeting parents

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week launched an ad campaign featuring medical professionals and aimed at encouraging parents to get their kids vaccinated.

The series of ads featured the heads of various U.S. medical organizations, including: Gerald Harmon, president of the American Medical Association; Ada Stewart, board chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians; Ernest Grant, president of the American Nurses Association; and Moira Szilagyi, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Like you, there’s nothing more important to me than keeping our kids safe,” Grant says in one of the ads.

In the videos, the health care leaders tapped by HHS stressed that the vaccine is safe, while contracting COVID-19 is not. Collectively, the experts featured in the ad represented nearly 4.5 million medical professionals in the U.S.

This ad campaign comes as vaccination rates continue to slow and a large majority of children in the country remain unvaccinated. According to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January, just more than 70 percent of children between ages 5 and 11 are unvaccinated, while only around 22 percent are fully vaccinated.

In the same survey, 31 percent of parents for children aged 5-11 said they would probably or definitely will not vaccinate their child against COVID-19. Another 26 percent said they would probably get their child vaccinated or were still unsure.

Among older children, these percentages were lower, though less than 10 percent of parents among older age groups of children said they would “definitely” get their child vaccinated.