Abstract A36: Catching up: Building sustainable community-academic alliance to increase human papillomavirus vaccination uptake among college students
Authors: Ayala-Marin Aleli M. , Colon-Lopez Vivian , Velez-Alamo Camille , Rosado-Carpena Hernan , Soto-Salgado Marievelisse , Sanchez-Aracil Marta , Salgado-Cruz Omayra ,   VOCES Puerto Rico Vaccination Coalition, Toro Dianedis , Collazo-Castro Shelciy , Figueroa-Gonzalez Maria , Contreras Willmar , Tortolero-Luna Guillermo , Fernandez Maria E. 
Published: May 2016

Background: Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is a common sexually transmitted infection among college students, a group still eligible for HPV vaccination. The President's Cancer Panel has identified missed opportunities in the promotion for catch-up vaccination for older adolescents and young adults, a group identified for cancer prevention. Community-academic alliances targeting college students can be used to improve HPV vaccination rates in those who have not initiated or completed the 3-doses series.

Objective: The purpose of this ongoing effort is to build a community-academic alliance aiming to promote a sustainable infrastructure of research, outreach and service for HPV vaccination among college students.

Methods: A multilevel approach consisting of a series of research and outreach activities; training, as well as vaccination clinics targeting college students or parents, has been implemented since December 2014. Our group, the Puerto Rico Community Cancer Control Outreach Program (PRCCCOP) from the U54 University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and the MD Anderson Cancer Center Partnership for Excellence in Cancer Research, established alliances with the Puerto Rico Comprehensive Cancer Control Program, the Puerto Rico Breast and Cervical Early Detection Program and the HPV Committee from the Puerto Rico Cancer Coalition. A new alliance with the UPR system served as the foundation to conduct these activities.

Results: Research activities entitled ¡Habla de VPH! educated a total of 40 students and 468 parents. Both groups, significantly increased their HPV and HPV vaccine knowledge (from an average score of 66% and 72% up to an average score 95% and 93%, respectively) (p-value&lt;0.05). Outreach activities reached over 500 students; 34% of them want to receive notifications for future vaccination clinics. To this date, training activities such as capacity building of health professionals and train-the-trainers for peers reached a total of 71 participants. A total of 137 students attended to at least one of the 5 vaccination clinics held in two campuses, where more than half (61%; mean age=20 years old) received their first dose of the HPV vaccine.

Conclusion: College students represent a captive community that can benefit from multiple activities, designed in partnerships, aiming to increase HPV vaccination uptake. Existing alliances of PRCCCOP were a facilitator in the design and development of those activities. Another facilitator for these effort was having a contact-person in campus, as part of the alliance, who helped navigate through the administrative process within campus, resulting in less time and resources involved by other alliance members. This ongoing alliance have various milestones: (1) the addition of new partners in the efforts of HPV vaccination uptake; (2) over one-thousand people reached with research, outreach or training activities; and (3) the effectiveness of the educational intervention ¡Habla de VPH! in increasing HPV knowledge. Despite these achievements, and understanding that our educational activities alone does not increase HPV vaccination, we developed a new plan to promote vaccination, with the implementation of vaccination clinics on campus. During the implementation of HPV vaccine clinics, other challenges emerged such as campus size, complexity and diversity of the groups within the university. To address these challenges, future activities will aim at specific targets within the campus, such as faculty or schools, and to engage more professors and students-groups in those specific targets.

Citation Format: Aleli M. Ayala-Marin, Vivian Colon-Lopez, Camille Velez-Alamo, Hernan Rosado-Carpena, Marievelisse Soto-Salgado, Marta Sanchez-Aracil, Omayra Salgado-Cruz, VOCES Puerto Rico Vaccination Coalition, Dianedis Toro, Shelciy Collazo-Castro, Maria Figueroa-Gonzalez, Willmar Contreras, Guillermo Tortolero-Luna, Maria E. Fernandez. Catching up: Building sustainable community-academic alliance to increase human papillomavirus vaccination uptake among college students. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eighth AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 13-16, 2015; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2016;25(3 Suppl):Abstract nr A36.