Impact assessment of a provider-targeted national vaccine messaging campaign on human papillomavirus vaccination rates among US adolescent males

Abstract

Initial uptake of the cancer-preventative human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in the US was slow, especially among adolescent males. To address this, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with the Hager Sharp communications development company to launch a national campaign in 2015 to improve physician counseling and rebrand the vaccine as cancer prevention. In this study, we compared HPV vaccination rates among 13–17-year-old males before (2010–2014) and after (2015–2019) the CDC-Hager Sharp campaign using National Immunization Survey-Teen data to determine the potential impact of this campaign on improving vaccine uptake among adolescent males. Employing provider-verified vaccination data available for 49,644 males from 2010 to 2014 and 47,943 males from 2015 to 2019, we found that the adjusted prevalence ratios of 13–17-year-old males who initiated and completed the vaccine series increased approximately 5-fold between the 2010–2014 and 2015–2019 periods. Increases in post-campaign initiation/completion rates were greatest among respondents with mothers who were married or had attended college, respondents who lived in the Northeast or Midwest, and those from households with annual incomes > $75,000. Together, these data suggest that the campaign contributed to the observed increase in HPV vaccine uptake among adolescent males. Although sociodemographic disparities were identified, the greater improvement in vaccination rates observed among individuals with higher socio-demographic status may simply reflect their relatively poorer rates of initial vaccine uptake. Overall, the data suggest that provider-targeted campaigns can be a useful tool to boost vaccinations and should be considered for inclusion in future vaccination campaigns.