Project 3 Prospectus: Polio vs Covid
My aspirations for project three is to compare the American polio epidemic–one of the United States’ biggest epidemics–with America’s recent covid pandemic. The two diseases bear similarities: widespread, easily transmitted, massive societal impact, and vaccine controversies. Ultimately, my thesis will focus on a comparison of the differing vaccination rates between polio and covid, through exploring questions such as: how did the diseases similarly impact society? What was the government’s response to polio, and to covid? How are the responses similar/different? What are possible explanations for the lower covid vaccination rates? This topic personally matters to me because I’m interested in studying diseases and learning about the ways we are able to treat, cure, and eradicate them. This prospectus will discuss my topic’s connection to our class, my roadmap for the project, and how I will analyze my argument for my intended audience.
To connect my topic to our class discussion, I selected two sources from our class course reader:
-Abernathy, “Befriend someone you disagree with” in Washington Post, May 23, 2021.
-Jeste, [Excerpts on] Cognitive Biases in Wiser, 2020.
One of the topics we discussed was the idea of bias and how pre-existing biases can influence our opinions and decisions, related to the Wiser excerpt. The Abernathy article examined the polarization of biases and America’s division between political parties. These two articles will guide my thinking to examine the biases prevalent that influenced how the American public viewed the polio and covid vaccines.
To deepen and explore my topic, the roadmap of my final project is as follows. I will begin by introducing both covid and polio, providing background information on the diseases, including similarities such as effects on society, and differences with regards to vaccinations. I will use the Meyers study to discuss events such as school closure, education impacts, and city quarantines, comparing polio to the covid school closures and quarantines. My next paragraph will discuss organization-level responses for polio, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s efforts to champion polio research and raise awareness for disabilities through the creation of organizations such as the NFIP and March for Dimes using Dorfman’s article. I will also mention the creation of polio committees and their efforts to treat polio from the Laurel Iverson source, and then discuss and compare the polio response to covid response organizations such as the World Health Organization, using the article from Kuznetsova and additional sources. After that, I plan to analyze how organizational efforts promoted vaccination to the public, for both polio and covid. The Stephen E. Mawdsley source talks about how the NFIP recruited teenagers to promote vaccines. Some other sources such as Yeracaris also talk about the demographics of people who were vaccinated, which I plan to use. For the comparison with covid, I want to pull from the Omer article since it suggests methods of vaccine promotion. Finally, the last paragraph will analyze the differences in approaches and attitudes between polio and covid that resulted in a lower covid vaccination rate. For this paragraph, I plan to use a multitude of sources, both news and scholarly articles to compile comparisons and reasonings behind this vaccination percentage difference. In my conclusion, to broaden my scope, I want to discuss what tactics used against polio should have been or could be applied to the covid case, to minimize the vaccination gap.
Throughout my project, I will be using analytical lenses to deepen and expand my argument–most likely the historical and case study lenses to present to my audience. The nature of my topic, a comparison between a historical and current event, will require the historical lens which can add layers to my argument. I have also found a few sources that cover case studies of my topic, so I can use those sources as evidence and draw conclusions. Even though my topic has both historical and public health aspects, I do not believe that my audience needs to be an expert in either realm, since the general argument surrounding vaccinations is deeply integrated into our daily lives and not historically complex–therefore, I believe any reader as an upperclassmen in high school can read and understand this research paper.
To connect my topic to our class discussion, I selected two sources from our class course reader:
-Abernathy, “Befriend someone you disagree with” in Washington Post, May 23, 2021.
-Jeste, [Excerpts on] Cognitive Biases in Wiser, 2020.
One of the topics we discussed was the idea of bias and how pre-existing biases can influence our opinions and decisions, related to the Wiser excerpt. The Abernathy article examined the polarization of biases and America’s division between political parties. These two articles will guide my thinking to examine the biases prevalent that influenced how the American public viewed the polio and covid vaccines.
To deepen and explore my topic, the roadmap of my final project is as follows. I will begin by introducing both covid and polio, providing background information on the diseases, including similarities such as effects on society, and differences with regards to vaccinations. I will use the Meyers study to discuss events such as school closure, education impacts, and city quarantines, comparing polio to the covid school closures and quarantines. My next paragraph will discuss organization-level responses for polio, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s efforts to champion polio research and raise awareness for disabilities through the creation of organizations such as the NFIP and March for Dimes using Dorfman’s article. I will also mention the creation of polio committees and their efforts to treat polio from the Laurel Iverson source, and then discuss and compare the polio response to covid response organizations such as the World Health Organization, using the article from Kuznetsova and additional sources. After that, I plan to analyze how organizational efforts promoted vaccination to the public, for both polio and covid. The Stephen E. Mawdsley source talks about how the NFIP recruited teenagers to promote vaccines. Some other sources such as Yeracaris also talk about the demographics of people who were vaccinated, which I plan to use. For the comparison with covid, I want to pull from the Omer article since it suggests methods of vaccine promotion. Finally, the last paragraph will analyze the differences in approaches and attitudes between polio and covid that resulted in a lower covid vaccination rate. For this paragraph, I plan to use a multitude of sources, both news and scholarly articles to compile comparisons and reasonings behind this vaccination percentage difference. In my conclusion, to broaden my scope, I want to discuss what tactics used against polio should have been or could be applied to the covid case, to minimize the vaccination gap.
Throughout my project, I will be using analytical lenses to deepen and expand my argument–most likely the historical and case study lenses to present to my audience. The nature of my topic, a comparison between a historical and current event, will require the historical lens which can add layers to my argument. I have also found a few sources that cover case studies of my topic, so I can use those sources as evidence and draw conclusions. Even though my topic has both historical and public health aspects, I do not believe that my audience needs to be an expert in either realm, since the general argument surrounding vaccinations is deeply integrated into our daily lives and not historically complex–therefore, I believe any reader as an upperclassmen in high school can read and understand this research paper.
Annotated Bibliography
Brink, Susan. "Can't Help Falling In Love With A Vaccine: How Polio Campaign Beat Vaccine Hesitancy." NPR.org, 3 May 2021, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/03/988756973/cant-help-falling-in-love-with-a-vaccine-how-polio-campaign-beat-vaccine-hesitan.
- Susan Brink, an author and co-author of two books, is the writer of this NPR source. She interviews David Oshinsky, a historian at NYU and an author of Polio: An American Story, as well as Stacey Stewart, the current president of the March of Dimes organization. The focus of the article is about what Stewart and Oshinsky have to say–Stewart talks about the March for Dimes and their effort in spreading polio awareness and the trust that people had in the vaccine. Oshinsky mentions a factor of racism that surrounded the vaccinations. There are also some comparisons between polio and covid.
- This source would be helpful in my last paragraph where I make comparisons between polio and covid vaccination rates. I may use Oshinsky’s ideas about racism to expand my analysis about negative social effects surrounding polio, and make connections to the demographics most affected by covid.
- Lidia Kuznetsova is a faculty of medicine at University of Barcelona and has written multiple articles on cancer research. The World Health Organization (WHO) is considered one of the main organizations that contributed to fighting the covid battle on the international scale. This article covers some of the covid responses of the WHO, such as fundraising millions of dollars towards covid prevention but also discusses criticisms that the organization faced due to their underestimation of the covid threat and slow response. Under Donald Trump’s presidency, Trump also suspended the US financing of the WHO.
- While the WHO did gather a lot of funding and contribute to fighting against covid (which I will use to discuss covid organization efforts), the criticisms of the WHO also present arguments for comparison against polio. Particularly, Trump’s involvement in withdrawing from the WHO contributed to the anti-vaccination movement and fueling international tensions, which is evidence to use in my last body paragraph about the difference in vaccination rates.
- Dawn Larsen is a professor of health sciences at Minnesota State University Mankato and published in the American Journal of Health Education. This article gives thorough background information on the rise of polio, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the March for Dimes, background on vaccine development and implementation, and the fight against anti-vaccine protests. This source is very informational and has a slight bias at the end towards a pro-vaccination status.
- Since there is so much background information within this journal article, I plan to use this source throughout my essay, to provide background information about polio. There is also a fair amount of information which I plan to use on the March of Dimes organization which played a large role in funding research, promoting vaccinations, and raising awareness.
- The author of this article is Padraig Moran, a writer with the CBC news, but the main focus of the article is an interview with Jill Lepore, a Harvard professor. Lepore talks about the anti-vaccination movement and the resistance against ‘socialist’ ideals of the federal government distributing vaccines. She compares the polio response to the covid response, and explains why anti-vaccination sentiments still exist. Moran seems to have a bias towards pro-vaccination since she gives a slight negative tone towards anti-vaccination supporters when she talks about their protests even before the emergence of the covid vaccine.
- This source will be used in my comparison between polio and covid in the last section as an explanation to the polarization surrounding vaccinations that repeated itself between the 1950s and 2020s. It also opens up a possibility to explore what changes we would have to implement to break the cycle of repetition.
- The Lancet is one of the oldest high-impact general medical journals. This article in particular is written by many authors, headed by Saad Omer, an epidemiologist. The issue discusses the reasoning behind the vaccination debate, mainly political polarization and anti-vaccine movements heading the spread of misinformation. Other parts of the article list different strategies to promote vaccine acceptance, such as making vaccination appointments easier, providing equal access to vaccines, and fighting against anti-vaccine groups.
- This source will be helpful for me when explaining reasons for the lower covid vaccination rates and the efforts to promote vaccination, since the article discusses both aspects that fit my argument. I will pull from this article especially regarding partisan divide and data from this source showing how self-identity with political parties is associated with vaccination attitudes.
Works Cited
Brink, Susan. "Can't Help Falling In Love With A Vaccine: How Polio Campaign Beat Vaccine Hesitancy." NPR.org, 3 May 2021, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/03/988756973/cant-help-falling-in-love-with-a-vaccine-how-polio-campaign-beat-vaccine-hesitan.
Clausen, John A., et al. "Parent Attitudes Toward Participation of Their Children in Polio Vaccine Trials." American Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health, vol. 44, no. 12, 1954, pp. 1526-1536. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.44.12.1526
Dorfman, Robert G., et al. "Dr. Polio: Revisiting FDR's Medical Legacy." Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, vol. 35 no. 1, 2018, p. 160-192. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/695810.
Kuznetsova L. COVID-19: The World Community Expects the World Health Organization to Play a Stronger Leadership and Coordination Role in Pandemics Control. Front Public Health. 2020 Sep 8;8:470. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00470. PMID: 33014970; PMCID: PMC7505920.
Larsen, Dawn. "The March of Dimes and Polio: Lessons in Vaccine Advocacy for Health Educators." American Journal of Health Education, vol. 43, no. 1, Jan. 2012, pp. 47-54, eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ978264. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ978264.pdf
Lee, Bruce Y. "Did Marjorie Taylor Greene Compare Polio And Covid-19 Vaccines? Here’s The Problem." Forbes, 21 Dec. 2021, www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/12/21/did-marjorie-taylor-greene-compare-polio-and-covid-19-vaccines-heres-the-problem/?sh=57caa4551033.
Meyers, K., Thomasson, M.A. Can pandemics affect educational attainment? Evidence from the polio epidemic of 1916. Cliometrica 15, 231–265 (2021). https://doi-org.libproxy.berkeley.edu/10.1007/s11698-020-00212-3
Moran, Padraig. "Polio Vaccine Set off Wave of Relief, and a Wave of Resistance. COVID-19 Era May Be Similar, Says Jill Lepore." CBC, 15 Dec. 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-9-2020-1.5604421/polio-vaccine-set-off-wave-of-relief-and-a-wave-of-resistance-covid-19-era-may-be-similar-says-jill-lepore-1.5604925#:~:text=wave%20of%20resistance.-,COVID%2D19%20era%20may%20be%20similar%2C%20says%20Jill%20Lepore,the%20era%20of%20COVID%2D19.
Omer, Saad B., et al. "Promoting COVID-19 vaccine acceptance: recommendations from the Lancet Commission on Vaccine Refusal, Acceptance, and Demand in the USA." The Lancet, vol. 398, no. 10317, 2021, pp. 2186-2192. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02507-1
Schupmann, Will D. "Human Experimentation in Public Schools: How Schools Served as Sites of Vaccine Trials in the 20th Century." American Journal of Public Health, vol. 108, no. 8, 2018, pp. 1015-1022. https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1084&context=phr
Stephen E. Mawdsley (2016) ‘Salk Hops’: Teen Health Activism and the Fight against Polio, 1955 – 1960, Cultural and Social History, 13:2, 249-265, DOI: 10.1080/14780038.2016.1145393
Thompson, Kimberly M., and Radboud J.Duintjer Tebbens. “Retrospective Cost-Effectiveness Analyses for Polio Vaccination in the United States.” Risk Analysis: An International Journal, vol. 26, no. 6, Dec. 2006, pp. 1423–40. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00831.x.
Yeracaris, Constantine A. “The Acceptance of Polio Vaccine: An Hypothesis.” The American Catholic Sociological Review, vol. 22, no. 4, 1961, pp. 299–305. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3708037. Accessed 21 Oct. 2022.
Clausen, John A., et al. "Parent Attitudes Toward Participation of Their Children in Polio Vaccine Trials." American Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health, vol. 44, no. 12, 1954, pp. 1526-1536. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.44.12.1526
Dorfman, Robert G., et al. "Dr. Polio: Revisiting FDR's Medical Legacy." Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, vol. 35 no. 1, 2018, p. 160-192. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/695810.
Kuznetsova L. COVID-19: The World Community Expects the World Health Organization to Play a Stronger Leadership and Coordination Role in Pandemics Control. Front Public Health. 2020 Sep 8;8:470. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00470. PMID: 33014970; PMCID: PMC7505920.
Larsen, Dawn. "The March of Dimes and Polio: Lessons in Vaccine Advocacy for Health Educators." American Journal of Health Education, vol. 43, no. 1, Jan. 2012, pp. 47-54, eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ978264. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ978264.pdf
Lee, Bruce Y. "Did Marjorie Taylor Greene Compare Polio And Covid-19 Vaccines? Here’s The Problem." Forbes, 21 Dec. 2021, www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/12/21/did-marjorie-taylor-greene-compare-polio-and-covid-19-vaccines-heres-the-problem/?sh=57caa4551033.
Meyers, K., Thomasson, M.A. Can pandemics affect educational attainment? Evidence from the polio epidemic of 1916. Cliometrica 15, 231–265 (2021). https://doi-org.libproxy.berkeley.edu/10.1007/s11698-020-00212-3
Moran, Padraig. "Polio Vaccine Set off Wave of Relief, and a Wave of Resistance. COVID-19 Era May Be Similar, Says Jill Lepore." CBC, 15 Dec. 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-9-2020-1.5604421/polio-vaccine-set-off-wave-of-relief-and-a-wave-of-resistance-covid-19-era-may-be-similar-says-jill-lepore-1.5604925#:~:text=wave%20of%20resistance.-,COVID%2D19%20era%20may%20be%20similar%2C%20says%20Jill%20Lepore,the%20era%20of%20COVID%2D19.
Omer, Saad B., et al. "Promoting COVID-19 vaccine acceptance: recommendations from the Lancet Commission on Vaccine Refusal, Acceptance, and Demand in the USA." The Lancet, vol. 398, no. 10317, 2021, pp. 2186-2192. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02507-1
Schupmann, Will D. "Human Experimentation in Public Schools: How Schools Served as Sites of Vaccine Trials in the 20th Century." American Journal of Public Health, vol. 108, no. 8, 2018, pp. 1015-1022. https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1084&context=phr
Stephen E. Mawdsley (2016) ‘Salk Hops’: Teen Health Activism and the Fight against Polio, 1955 – 1960, Cultural and Social History, 13:2, 249-265, DOI: 10.1080/14780038.2016.1145393
Thompson, Kimberly M., and Radboud J.Duintjer Tebbens. “Retrospective Cost-Effectiveness Analyses for Polio Vaccination in the United States.” Risk Analysis: An International Journal, vol. 26, no. 6, Dec. 2006, pp. 1423–40. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00831.x.
Yeracaris, Constantine A. “The Acceptance of Polio Vaccine: An Hypothesis.” The American Catholic Sociological Review, vol. 22, no. 4, 1961, pp. 299–305. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3708037. Accessed 21 Oct. 2022.