Health education goes Hollywood: Working with prime-time and daytime entertainment television for immunization promotion

This article presents an entertainment education strategy used to influence Hollywood prime-time and daytime television programs to add storylines on the importance of immunizations to their shows. Rather than giving information about immunizations to show producers, directors, actors, and writers, we furnished "log lines" and true stories about immunizations that could be used to inspire scripts that included immunization themes. By working through personal contacts within the entertainment television industry's closed system of networks, we were able to gain entree and some airtime for our campaign agenda. Embedded messages aired on eight popular shows in the 1996-1997 broadcast season, with five scheduled to air in the 1997-1998 season. These efforts were evaluated qualitatively, focusing on issues of personal networks, content of aired messages, and comparative costs for paid airtime. The strategy developed can be adapted for a range of entertainment education interventions.