title: Awareness of HPV and Uptake of Vaccination in a High-Risk Population.
abstract: Immunization against the human papillomavirus (HPV) is effective at preventing HPV-related cancers, but vaccination rates have remained low. Levels of awareness could conceivably influence vaccination rates, but currently the relationship is unknown. This is the first study to test how strongly levels of awareness among parents and adolescents are related to subsequent HPV vaccination among a high-risk population of adolescents.
  
  
  
  This longitudinal cohort study measured baseline levels of awareness (about HPV, cervical cancer, HPV vaccination, and news or advertisements about HPV vaccination) among parents of adolescents and also a separate sample of adolescents. Participants resided in predominantly low-income, African American neighborhoods of a large American city. During a 12-month follow-up period, the outcome measures were defined as adolescent receipt of any HPV vaccination, as measured by clinic records.
  
  
  
  Within 1 year, <16% of adolescents received vaccination. The relationship between awareness and subsequent vaccination was either not statistically significant or not meaningful in magnitude, with R(2) = 0.004 to 0.02. The predicted probability of getting vaccination was <0.50 for all awareness levels and prediction accuracy was poor (area under the curve = 0.56-0.64).
  
  
  
  In this high-risk population, levels of awareness among parents and adolescents were not substantially related to subsequent adolescent HPV vaccination.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry and Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania fishman1@upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fishman
authors.affiliation: Biostatistics and Epidemiology and Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Perelman School of Medicine, and.
authors.forename: Lynne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: Medicine.
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Frank
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D000368:Aged; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice / Q000208:ethnology; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D030361:Papillomavirus Infections / Q000150:complications / Q000517:prevention & control*; D053918:Papillomavirus Vaccines; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000208:ethnology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015143:Philadelphia; D011203:Poverty; D011446:Prospective Studies; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000821:virology; D014611:Vaccination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
chemical_list: D053918:Papillomavirus Vaccines