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Ondine Godtschalk, A Picture of Health? New Zealand-made Health Education Films 1952–1962, Social History of Medicine, Volume 25, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 122–138, https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkr048
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Summary
Eager to harness film's popular appeal for its public health agenda, the New Zealand Department of Health (DoH) commissioned 18 of its own short health education films between 1947 and 1962. Focusing on four films targeting diseases prominent in New Zealand's morbidity statistics—namely cancer, hydatids, tuberculosis and smoking-related cancers—this article considers how the DoH used film to literally ‘move’ disease into the public imagination. Examining the films both as artefact and product, it argues that they were carefully constructed to act on viewers' sense of morality in distinct ways. It analyses the meanings produced and discusses how the films negotiated responsibility for disease management and prevention between the state and the individual. This article also shows how the films both participated in, and resulted from, the transnational movement of public health ideas.