Rates of HPV vaccination increase among young adolescents in US
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Key takeaways:
- Rates of HPV vaccine initiation before age 13 increased among boys and girls from 2018 to 2021.
- Rates of HPV vaccine series completion also increased but remained below 40% in both groups.
The percentage of girls and boys who initiated the HPV vaccine series before age 13 increased in recent years, according to study findings published in JAMA Pediatrics.
The percentage of those who completed the entire series by age 13 also increased but remained below 40%, researchers reported.
HPV vaccine hesitancy is higher among parents than for other vaccines, and the number of parents citing safety concerns as a reason not to vaccinate their children against the infection has climbed, research has shown.
The CDC recommends that children begin the HPV vaccine series at age 11 or 12 years but also says that it can be started as early as age 9 years, which researchers have said could improve coverage, as could reframing the shot as a cancer vaccine.
The authors of the new study noted that in recent years, uptake of the vaccine has been lower among younger adolescents, in spite of findings that receiving it at a younger age improves its vaccine efficacy.
“Data on sex-specific trends in adolescent HPV vaccine initiation and series completion before age 13 years are limited; therefore, we aimed to assess these trends using clinician-verified data from the 2011 to 2021 National Immunization Survey-Teen,” the authors wrote.
They examined 10 years’ worth of data from the survey, identifying adolescents who initiated HPV vaccination and completed the series before age 13 years as separate outcomes.
From 2011 to 2021, 220,806 adolescents completed their HPV vaccination series, with 51.1% of the patients being male. The authors found that the percentage of adolescents aged 13 to 17 years who initiated HPV vaccination and completed the series before age 13 years increased among both females and males.
From 2018 to 2021 in particular, the percentage of females initiating HPV vaccination before age 13 rose from 50.5% to 62.7%, and the percentage who completed the series before age 13 climbed from 34.2% to 38.6%. Among males, the increased were from 42.6% to 59% and 27.6% to 35.7%, respectively.
“Although we noted increases in the percentages of adolescents who initiated HPV vaccination and completed the series before age 13 years, in 2021, most teens had not completed the series before age 13 years,” the authors wrote. “It is important to note that these findings may not reflect trends within other sociodemographic groups. Furthermore, a study limitation is that there were declining response rates over time, leading to potential nonresponse bias.”
The researchers called the increases “encouraging” but added that more progress is needed and that barriers such as inconsistent national guidelines must be corrected.
“Because earlier initiation of the HPV vaccine series is associated with higher rates of on-time series completion, we believe clinicians should consider recommending HPV vaccination as early as age 9 years,” they wrote.
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