A community-based, interdisciplinary approach to improving HPV vaccine uptake at a large urban public university

Abstract

Objective:

The purpose of this project was to pilot and determine the outcomes of a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary human papillomavirus awareness and vaccination campaign within a university community.

Participants:

Students, faculty, and staff of a large urban Midwest-based public university.

Methods

This consisted of five key interventions: promotion and outreach, volunteer training, patient education, access, and documentation. Perceived knowledge and attitudes toward HPV and the HPV vaccine, and HPV vaccine uptake were measured as outcome variables.

Results:

The project resulted in statistically significant increases in perceived knowledge regarding HPV and the HPV vaccine, willingness to receive HPV vaccination, and likeliness to recommend HPV vaccination (p < 0.001). The project also resulted in a 76.6% increase in the number of HPV vaccines administered at the university’s Campus Health Center.

Conclusions:

A novel HPV awareness and vaccination campaign led to increases in knowledge regarding HPV and HPV vaccines, and substantially increased HPV vaccinations administered at a large, urban public university.

Keywords:

• HPV
• vaccination
• program evaluation
• interdisciplinary
• pharmacy

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and was deemed a program evaluation/quality improvement initiative (non-human participant research) by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Wayne State University.

Data availability statement

Raw survey data is publically available at data.mendeley.com. Mendeley Data, V1, http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/rghgjjfvj4.1.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP)/American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) District IV Grant Award to Pharmacy Students (https://www.district4nabp-aacp.org/grant-iv).