Identifying Health Beliefs Influencing Hispanic College Men's Willingness to Vaccinate against HPV

ABSTRACT

This study identifies health beliefs influencing Hispanic college men's human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine uptake decision making processes. Hispanic college men were interviewed about their HPV vaccine knowledge, and information seeking behaviors. Overall, participants did not view HPV infection or vaccination as an immediate concern or priority; belief that it was a virus that only affected women, and a sense of invulnerability informed their positions. Despite these issues, most men were willing to consider getting the HPV vaccine if they received more education from health care providers, and cost concerns were addressed. These findings pointed to gaps in our understandings of Hispanic college men's HPV vaccination beliefs and provided insight into the importance of integrating this population's unique beliefs into campus health providers efforts aimed at increasing vaccination rates.

KEYWORDS:

• Hispanic men
• HPV vaccine
• masculinity

Notes

1 We recognize that there is a debate between the use of the terms Hispanic and Latino. The term Hispanic was created by the U.S. government to identify people “who speak, are affected by or are Spanish-like” (Suro, 2006). It is incorrectly used to also identify other non-Spanish speaking nationalities such as Brazilians; this lack of cultural appropriateness is one of the critiques raised about the term Hispanic. However, as interviews for the present study were conducted in an urban center where the majority of residents–including the study participants–primarily self-identify as Hispanic, we use this term in the present paper (Fry & Lopez, 2012).