Study looks at how the pandemic disrupted adolescent HPV vaccinations
Published on April 14, 2022
A study by University of Iowa researchers found that during the pandemic, clinics struggled to provide routine care, and as a result, many adolescents missed HPV vaccinations.
Read the story in the Washington Post.
Paper Summary
Researchers know COVID-19 has affected health care delivery, including delivery of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine; however, little is known about the impact of the pandemic on implementation efforts related to promoting HPV vaccination.
The Iowa researchers explored challenges to HPV vaccination through the perspectives of clinic managers in family practice and pediatric clinics and found that many efforts to implement evidence-based interventions to promote HPV vaccination have similarly been disrupted by the pandemic.
Without a recommitment to implementation by researchers and practitioners alike, we risk leaving many adolescents unprotected against HPV.
The authors included UI College of Public Health researchers Grace Ryan (now at the University of Massachusetts), Paul Gilbert, Sato Ashida, Mary Charlton, and Natoshia Askelson, and UI Carver College of Medicine researcher Aaron Scherer.