HPV vaccination rates increasing among 15-year-olds

(HealthDay)—From 2011 to 2017, there was an increase in the proportion of U.S. 15-year-olds with at least one-dose or two-dose human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, according to a study published online Sept. 14 in Pediatrics.

Szu-Ta Chen, M.D., Ph.D., from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues describe trends in HPV vaccination coverage in children using nationwide population-based data. Children were followed from the year they turned 9, and the cumulative incidence of at least one- and two-dose HPV vaccination was estimated. Data were included from 7,837,480 children and 19.8 million person-years.

The researchers found that from 2011 to 2017, there was an increase in the proportion of 15-year-old girls and boys with at least a one-dose HPV vaccination, from 38 and 5 percent, respectively, to 57 and 51 percent, respectively; the corresponding proportions with at least a two-dose vaccination increased from 30 and 2 percent to 46 and 39 percent. There was variation in two-dose HPV vaccination coverage by 2017, ranging from from 80 percent in girls in Washington, D.C., to 15 percent in boys in Mississippi. There was a positive association noted for two-dose HPV vaccination coverage with legislation for HPV vaccine education and pediatrician availability.

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