A Novel Approach to Guide Health Promotion Planning for Preventive Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Among Adolescent Girls in an Ontario Public Health Unit

Abstract

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is widespread in the population and an important concern for public health. HPV-associated benign and cancerous disease is vaccine preventable yet vaccine uptake has been suboptimal. Adolescents are the primary target for vaccination yet their perspective has been inadequately examined. Ontario provides population-based preventive HPV vaccination to adolescent girls yet in the program’s first 2 years only approximately half of eligible girls received it. Effective strategies to improve vaccine uptake are needed. This thesis proposes a theory and ethics-based model to guide health promotion planning for HPV vaccination. Adopting an adolescent perspective, the model is applied and comprises: 1) a systematic review to identify barriers and facilitators to HPV vaccination from the viewpoint of young females; 2) GIS uses for communicating geospatial health information regarding vaccination; and 3) a roadmap for the future including recommendations for guiding principles, research, intervention development, and health policy.