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.

"In 2017, despite the increasing trends in uptake, HPV vaccine coverage remained behind the Healthy People 2020 goal of 80 percent by 15 years of age," the authors write.