Long-Term Implications of the Infomedic during the COVID-19 Pandemic to US Adolescents’ HPV Vaccination Rates: Maternal Engagement with Pro- and Anti-vaccine Social Media Posts and Overarching Vaccine Hesitancy (Preprint)
Authors: Argyris Young , Kim Yongsuk , Song Won 
Published: October 2020

BACKGROUND

The propagation of vaccine misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that the pandemic may pose long-term harm on public health via depressed immunization rates. Between February 2020 and April 2020, the uptake rates of the HPV vaccine have decreased by 73%. Missing the critical age for HPV vaccination (i.e., 11-12 years old) will make adolescents susceptible to HPV-associated cancers in the next 20-30 years. Despite the importance, very few pro-vaccine interventions conducted on SM have succeeded in increasing HPV vaccination rates.

OBJECTIVE

Our overall objective is to identify the reasons why anti-vaccine messages effectively lower HPV vaccination rates while pro-vaccine messages do not increase such rates. In so doing, we suggest that overarching vaccine hesitancy is a reason for the discrepant outcomes of anti- vs. pro-vaccine SM posts. Our objective is pursued in two specific aims: we compare anti- and pro-vaccine posts in terms of (i) their roles in fostering overarching vaccine hesitancy among mothers (the main HPV vaccine decision-makers), and (ii) accompanying HPV vaccination rates among their adolescent children.

METHODS

In late December of 2019-mid January of 2020, we conducted a population-based survey among 426 mothers of US adolescents aged 13–18. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus in China occurred in December 2019, and awareness regarding the virus was increasing in the US during this time. Therefore, our data collected during this time allow us to infer the impact of increasing overarching vaccine hesitancy on HPV vaccination rates, while excluding the effects of access restrictions to healthcare facilities imposed since March of 2020. We developed a rigorous scale for engagement with anti- and pro-vaccine SM posts, measured adolescents’ HPV vaccination rates along the series initiation to completion, and conducted path analyses to assess the associations among them.

RESULTS

Our survey results show that mothers’ engagement with anti-vaccine content is negatively associated with their children’s HPV vaccine vaccination rates via their increased overarching vaccine hesitancy. In contrast, maternal engagement with pro-vaccine SM content is not associated with either overarching vaccine hesitancy or HPV vaccine vaccination rates. These results remained significant after controlling for socioeconomic, demographic, and accessibility factors, suggesting that mothers’ engagement with anti-vaccine messages on SM explains above and beyond what other known factors explain.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that increasing overarching vaccine hesitancy, heightened by the infodemic, can substantially reduce HPV vaccination rates, even after accessibility factors are controlled. Our results imply that the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic can be extended for many years to come through depressed HPV vaccination rates. As a result, there is an urgent need to develop interventions to increase HPV vaccination rates and to address vaccine hesitancy among mothers who feel emotionally challenged during the pandemic.

CLINICALTRIAL

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