What is it about?
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, is famous for children's books such as The Cat in the Hat. Less known is his long contribution to public health in the United States. As a young illustrator he drew a 17-year advertising campaign for 'Flit', an insect spray ('Quick, Henry, the Flit!'). During World War II he designed the 1943 army booklet 'This is Ann' and several posters that used humour and visual metaphors - the malaria mosquito as a dangerous 'Ann' - to teach soldiers to use nets and repellents, replacing boring military manuals. Decades later, in the 1990s, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used his beloved characters and rhymes on posters promoting childhood vaccination, distributed free to clinics in English and Spanish.
Featured Image
Photo by Yonghyun Lee on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Health messages work better when they are visual, simple and emotionally engaging, especially for people with low health literacy. The story of Dr. Seuss shows that art and entertainment can be powerful, long-lasting tools for prevention, from vector control to vaccination. It offers inspiration for modern public health communication and for medical education, at a time when vaccine hesitancy and misinformation remain major challenges.
Perspectives
I love this story because it shows that prevention does not have to be boring. A good cartoon can achieve what pages of instructions cannot. As infectious diseases physicians we spend a lot of time trying to convince people to vaccinate: perhaps we should learn a little from Dr. Seuss and use more humour, images and rhymes.
Professor Stefano Di Bella
Universita degli Studi di Trieste
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The art of prevention: Dr. Seuss’ contribution to public health, Ethics Medicine and Public Health, January 2026, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.jemep.2026.101338.
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