At-school vaccination boosts HPV vaccination coverage

At-school vaccination may be a useful tool to increase human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination coverage among adolescents, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.

Nathalie Thilly, Ph.D., from Université de Lorraine in Nancy, France, and colleagues examined the effectiveness of a three-component intervention (education of adolescents and their parents, the training of providers, and free vaccination at school) on HPV vaccination coverage among adolescents (aged 11 to 14 years). The analysis included 30,739 adolescents.

The researchers found that the median vaccination coverage increased by 4.0 to 14.2 percentage points at two months after the intervention. There was a significant increase in vaccination coverage with at-school vaccination (5.50 percentage points). There was no effect on vaccine coverage with adolescents‘ education and motivation (−0.08 percentage points) and general practitioners‘ (GPs’) training (−1.46 percentage points). At-school vaccination had a higher effect when access to GPs was poor.

“Regarding the primary outcome, it is possible that the time horizon was too short to highlight the benefits of the education and motivation and GPs’ training components,” the authors write. “They require that parents schedule two visits with their GP (one for the vaccine prescription and one for the vaccination) and they may delay one or both visits until they have another reason to consult their GP.”

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