Grant to Help UF Health Researchers Boost HPV Vaccinations Among Youngsters (UF Health Newsroom)

Grant to Help UF Health Researchers Boost HPV Vaccinations Among Youngsters

A team of UF Health researchers has received a five-year, $2.9 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to evaluate simple interventions aimed at health care providers and parents that could substantially boost vaccine rates for human papillomavirus, or HPV, among 11- and 12-year-olds.

Despite national recommendations that all 11- and 12-year-olds routinely receive the HPV vaccine, only about half of the teens start the vaccine series, according to Stephanie Staras, Ph.D., an associate professor in the UF College of Medicine’s department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics and the principal investigator of the grant. Moreover, a recent study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases found that only about 16% of teens were fully protected by the time they turned 13.

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