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Infant Mortality / Healthy Start Prenatal Care PSAs (Ad Council / HHS)

In May 1992 the Bush administration announced an Ad Council public service campaign for Healthy Start, HHS's infant-mortality reduction program. It came in three parts: a call to the public not to accept high infant death rates, a message to fathers and other men in an expectant mother's life, and a message to women that proper care starts well before birth.

Years
1992
Country
United States
Topic
Maternal health
Asks people to
Seek helpStart
Strategy
Simple instruction
Channel
PrintRadioTV
Audience
AdultsGeneral public
General public; men in an expectant mother's life; women of childbearing age.

Evidence

NoneUnknown

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Ad Council Ad Council (pro bono), campaign producer
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Healthy Start) Federal government, sponsor

Credits (who made it)

  • Grey Advertising Creative, 1992-1993 source
  • Caroline Jones Advertising Creative, 1997 source

Sources

  1. Bush, Remarks on maternal and infant health care (11 May 1992), Public Papers 1992 Book I archive · 1992
  2. Remarks on maternal and infant health care (Bush Library) archive
  3. Sullivan Vows To Cut 'Unconscionable' Infant-Death Rate (Education Week, 1991) news · 1991
  4. University of Illinois Archives, Ad Council Historical File 1941-1997 (RS 13/2/207), finding aid, box(es) 54 archive

Research notes

Known only from the President's remarks. The same remarks announce a new childhood immunization action plan, but no Ad Council immunization campaign of the 1990s was confirmed. Originals: Illinois Archives RS 13/2/207, box(es) 54; the parsed folder list is in data/ad-council-historical-file-13-2-207.tsv. The Illinois Historical File (13/2/207), Series 'Healthy Start', has HRSA/HHS items by Grey (1992-93) and Caroline Jones (1997), which confirms the campaign ran and gives the agencies. The ads themselves are not online. The same file has CDC 'Infant Immunization' (DMB&B, 1994-97) and 'Childhood Immunization' (DMB&B and Burrell, 1994), so an Ad Council immunization campaign of the 1990s did exist; it has no case yet. Links (#82) checked 2026-10-23: Ad Council pages from the Wayback Machine (adcouncil.org's old campaign pages), the Our History timeline or its case studies; dead campaign sites point to a Wayback copy from the campaign years.

Record cases/ad-council-healthy-start-infant-mortality.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign