Project Leader:  Vanessa Hiratsuka | Southcentral Foundation

Abstract

Alaska Native Adolescent HPV Vaccine Uptake is a development project aimed at increasing the uptake and series completion for human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adolescents in one of the largest tribal healthcare settings in the United States.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. HPV affects both men and women and is associated with 70% of oropharyngeal cancers, 69% of vulvar cancers, 63% of penile cancers, 91% of anal and rectal cancers, 75% of vaginal cancers, and 91% of cervical cancers. A vaccine to prevent HPV has been available since 2006 with three HPV vaccines currently available in the US. Despite the well documented efficacy of the vaccines, uptake continues to be below the Healthy People 2020 goal of 80%. It is recommended that the three doses of the vaccine be given to adolescents between the ages of 11 and 12 within a 6-month period. Adherence to this schedule would result in at least 80% of youth being fully vaccinated by age 13. Nationally, as of 2014, about 60% of females and close to 40% of males ages 13-17 had received at least one dose of an HPV vaccine, but only about 40% of females and approximately 20% of males had completed the 3-dose series. At Southcentral Foundation’s primary care center only 35% across sexes of AI/AN 13-year olds have received all three doses. Reduce HPV related cancer burden through optimal vaccination uptake, it is necessary to gain a better understanding of the characteristics of the provider, parent/patient, and clinical setting. Variables impacting this low vaccination rate in this large AI/AN population are not clear and therefore provide the need to implement this study. 

Through a stakeholder engagement process, this development project will allow for the determination of group sizes, assist the research team in selecting and describing measures for a future intervention application, develop culturally appropriate parent and provider intervention messages for AI/AN parents and their adolescent children, and describe/diagram the levels of intervention to be tested. The research development project will be co-lead by Dr. Hiratsuka, an AI/AN Senior Research at SCF, and Dr. Stillwater, an AI/AN Manager of the Alaska Native statewide Comprehensive Cancer Program at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Project outputs will include an application to the Alaska Area Institutional Review Board for the pilot project described in the specific aims page which will include intervention processes, data collection instruments and the development of a pilot award application.