In November 2015, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention featured the work of Melissa Gilkey, PhD, of the Center for Healthcare Research in Pediatrics (CHeRP) at the Department of Population Medicine. The paper focused on Dr. Gilkey’s recent study assessing the quality of primary care physicians’ HPV vaccine recommendations through a national online survey of 776 doctors.
Dr. Gilkey and her colleagues found that roughly a quarter of physicians do not strongly endorse HPV vaccines or deliver timely recommendations for girls or boys. Almost 60% of physicians reported using a risk-based approach to recommending HPV vaccine, meaning they typically recommend the vaccine only to adolescents they perceive as being at higher risk of becoming infected. Only half of physicians reported recommending same-day vaccination, and recommendation quality is lower among physicians who were uncomfortable talking about HPV vaccine or who believe parents do not value it.
The study findings show that some providers are uncomfortable starting discussions with parents about vaccinating their 11- and 12-year-old children against sexually transmitted viruses, though Dr. Gilkey’s earlier work suggests doctors may overestimate the hesitancy of parents when it comes to HPV vaccination. The authors suggest the need for interventions to help physicians improve their HPV vaccine recommendations in order to raise national coverage and use of a powerful tool for cancer prevention.
Read more about Dr. Gilkey’s study in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NPR, The Huffington Post, Healthline, and Medscape. The full Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention publication can be found here.