Abstract A065: How accurate are parents' recalls? Factors affecting the concordance of parental and provider reports of HPV vaccination among African American adolescents
Authors: Liu Elaine Z. , Siu Philip , Pan Chun , Ma Grace X. , Zhu Lin 
Published: September 2024

Objectives. Since the introduction of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in 2006, substantial efforts have been made at the national and state levels to monitor its uptake and understand the factors influencing vaccination. Most studies have focused on the acceptability and intent to vaccinate among adolescents and their parents, providing limited insights into how this understanding affects actual vaccine uptake and completion. A common method for measuring adolescents' vaccination status is parental recall. While some research has assessed the accuracy of parental recall, its implications have not been thoroughly explored. African Americans are disproportionately affected by HPV-related cancers, with higher mortality rates for cervical and oropharyngeal cancers compared to non-Hispanic whites. This study examined the accuracy of parents' reports of their adolescent children's HPV vaccination status and how this accuracy varied by socio-demographic characteristics within the Black/African American community. Methods. Data were taken from the 2015–2019 National Immunization Survey (NIS)-Teen, which includes a household interview and a provider-completed immunization history. We evaluated concordance between parents’ and providers’ reports of teens’ HPV vaccine initiation (at least 1 dose) and completion (3 doses) among Black/African American adolescents between the age of 13 to 17. We assessed bivariate associations of sociodemographic characteristics with having a concordant, false-positive (overreporting) or false-negative (underreporting) report, and used multinomial logistic regression to estimate the independent impact of each characteristic. Results: In a cohort of 68,205 adolescents (51.2% male, 95% CI: 50.4%-51.8%; 48.8% female, 95% CI: 48.2%-49.5%), parental reporting discrepancies in vaccination status were observed. Girls' parents were more likely to underreport (β=0.10, p=0.03) and overreport (β=0.10, p=0.03) vaccination status compared to boys' parents. Mothers with higher education levels were less likely to underreport, while single mothers were more likely to underreport (β=0.15, p=0.02) and overreport (β=0.17, p=0.008) vaccination status. Conclusions: Discrepancies between physician-reported and parental-reported HPV vaccination records among African American teenagers were observed, with parental reporting accuracy varying based on the child's gender and the mother's education level and marital status. Strategies to improve parental reporting accuracy and address disparities are needed to increase HPV vaccination rates and reduce HPV-related diseases in the African American community.

Citation Format: Elaine Z. Liu, Philip Siu, Chun Pan, Grace X. Ma, Lin Zhu. How accurate are parents' recalls? Factors affecting the concordance of parental and provider reports of HPV vaccination among African American adolescents [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 17th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2024 Sep 21-24; Los Angeles, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2024;33(9 Suppl):Abstract nr A065.