Session: Abstract of Distinction: Advancing the Science of Parent-Provider Communication about HPV Vaccination (Society for Prevention Research 27th Annual Meeting)

Widespread vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) could prevent most of the over 40,000 HPV-associated cancers diagnosed among men and women in the U.S. each year. Despite national recommendations for administration to adolescents by age 12, uptake of HPV vaccine remains low. As the key decision-makers about their children’s healthcare, parents’ communication with healthcare providers about HPV vaccine is critical for increasing vaccine uptake. Research on HPV vaccine-related communication has established evidence-based strategies for introducing adolescent vaccines. The next challenge is to identify strategies for: (1) identifying efficient and family-centered approaches to addressing parental concerns about the vaccine; and (2) moving research on HPV vaccine communication into practice.

Each of the papers in this symposium presents new data on provider-parent HPV vaccine communication HPV within a prevention science framework, highlighting advances in our understanding of: the etiology of parent concerns to inform message development; the efficacy of strategies to address those concerns; and strategies for effectively translating research into applied settings. The first presentation uses an innovative preference elicitation method (i.e., best-worst scaling) to describe patterns of parental concerns about HPV vaccination; findings provide novel data on how parents prioritize concerns and can inform efforts to support parents’ decision-making. The second presentation presents findings from a web-based randomized controlled trial addressing parents’ HPV vaccination concerns using tailored video messages; findings suggest that delivery of vaccine information through videos may increase parents’ intention to vaccinate their children, and point to future research on their use in primary care settings. The third presentation describes a cluster-randomized evaluation of a clinic-based intervention that adapted evidence-based communication tools to achieve excellent reach in a large pediatric health care system; findings can inform systems-level efforts to translate HPV vaccine communication research into clinical practice improvements. After the presentations, the discussant will comment on the implications of these studies for HPV prevention efforts, and moderate discussion between symposium attendees and presenters. Taken together, these papers advance the evidence-base for effective parent-provider communication which can increase HPV vaccination and, ultimately, prevent HPV-related cancers. Our aim is to highlight specific approaches to developing, testing, and translating communication interventions and to catalyze discussion of how prevention science can inform primary care and public health practice.