14 Million Adolescents Need to Be Vaccinated Against HPV

More than 14 million adolescents still need to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) in the next 8 years to achieve the American Cancer Society’s goal, according to a new analysis.

The American Cancer Society’s goal aims to have 80% of adolescents aged 11 or 12 up to date on their HPV vaccination by 2026. Because HPV can lead to various cancers, it is crucial that adolescents receive the vaccine at age 11 or 12. 

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To determine whether this goal is achievable, the researchers used data from the 2016 National Immunization Survey for Teens to estimate baseline HPV vaccination prevalence and data from the US Census Bureau to determine population projections.

“[We] estimated the cumulative number of additional adolescents 11 to 12 years old who would need to become [up to date] (ie, receive 2 doses) by first subtracting the number who would need to be vaccinated to achieve an intermediate target prevalence from the estimated number currently compliant and then summing these numbers between 2018 and 2026,” the researchers wrote.

Results showed that 7.62 million boys and 6.77 million girls aged 11 to 12 years would need to receive 2 doses of the HPV vaccine between 2018 and 2026. About 80% of adolescents who are not up to date also needed to initiate vaccination.

“It is estimated that at least 14.39 million additional adolescents aged 11 to 12 years in the United States will need to receive 2 doses of [HPV vaccination] for [an up to date HPV vaccination] prevalence of 80% to be achieved by 2026,” the researchers concluded. “To reach this goal, improvements in facilitators of [HPV vaccination] initiation, including physician recommendations and parental acceptability, are needed.”

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Fedewa SA, Preiss AJ, Fisher-Borne M, Goding Sauer A, Jemal A, Saslow D. Reaching 80% human papillomavirus vaccination prevalence by 2026: how many adolescents need to be vaccinated and what are their characteristics? [Published online September 26, 2018]. Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.31763.