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The human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common badually transmitted infection in the United States and a known cause of cancer, can be prevented by vaccination. New Public Vaccine Study Shows Public Perceptions of How Scientific Evidence for HPV Vaccine Represented in Society and the Media Can Influence Individual's Willingness to Support Health Measures likely to increase anti-HPV vaccination.
"The HPV vaccine is a safe and proven method of preventing cancer. It could therefore have many public health benefits, "said Loren Saulsberry, PhD, senior author of the study and a lecturer in public health sciences at the University of Chicago. . "The better we understand the public's appetite for HPV vaccination policies, the better we can implement approaches that are more likely to succeed."
The HPV vaccine was approved by the FDA in 2006 as a protective measure against cancers caused by HPV infection, such as cancers of the cervix and head and neck. Yet, in the United States, vaccination rates remain relatively low despite a high incidence of HPV infections.
The vaccine has not been widely accepted, despite its potential public health benefits in cancer prevention, in part because it has become "politicized".
Previous research had shown that an explicit political disagreement on the vaccine could lead to decreased support for the HPV vaccine requirements, but it was not clear whether public perceptions of HPV vaccine politicization were badociated with policies to strengthen immunization behavior.
To conduct their study, the researchers conducted a national survey of US adults aged 18 to 59, and among those who had heard about the HPV vaccine, asked them how they saw the vaccine.
Respondents were asked questions about the politicization of the HPV vaccine, measured in three dimensions: the perception of society and the media that the HPV vaccine was presented as controversial, the perception of the scientific validity of the anti-HPV vaccine -HPV, and perception of the HPV vaccine frequency at which the HPV vaccine was included in the policy discussions. They were also asked to what extent they supported the proposed HPV vaccination requirements, as well as their political ideology and previous personal experience with the vaccine.
The study found that of the two HPV vaccination policies that can be implemented by states and / or health care organizations, 59% of adults expressed support for policies that require pediatricians offer the HPV vaccine to families with children aged 11 to 18 years. Only 32% of respondents met the educational requirements of the HPV vaccine. In addition, among those who perceived that the science behind the HPV vaccine was "somewhat certain", 55% supported the vaccination requirements for college children, compared to 16% who supported these requirements. among those who considered science as "unclear."
Similarly, 82% of people favoring vaccination policies requiring pediatricians to offer HPV vaccine when they considered the science "somewhat certain", against 44% among those who considered it "very uncertain" around the vaccine. By adjusting the other characteristics of the study participants, the researchers again found a strong link between perceptions of scientific uncertainty and support for one or the other of HPV vaccination policies, perception according to which science is less clear is related to lower support for HPV vaccination policies.
Understanding the consequences of communicating scientific uncertainty relative to scientific consensus is an important direction for future research, the authors wrote.
"I think the most important conclusion of this finding is that the certainty of a body of evidence and how it is communicated to the public could influence public support for interventions." important policies, "said Saulsberry.
The study entitled "Perceptions of Politicization and Support for HPV Immunization Policy" will be published in Vaccine, published by Elsevier. Other authors include Erika Franklin Fowler, Ph.D., of Wesleyan University, and Rebekah Nagler, PhD, and Sarah Gollust, PhD, from the University of Minnesota. DOI: 10.1016 / j.vaccine.2019.05.062
Source: University of Chicago Center for Global Cancer Medicine
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