Sunday, July 6, 2025 7/6/2025

Hashtag HPV: Engaging parents through social media to increase HPV vaccination

Award Number: R01CA229324
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/15/2021
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/31/2024

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

Hashtag HPV: Engaging parents through social media to increase HPV vaccination - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Approximately 80 million people in the United States – or about one in four – are infected with human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV can cause cancer and there are vaccines that protect against cancer-related strains. Evidence supporting vaccine efficacy and safety is robust, and vaccine availability is widespread; however coverage rates continue to fall short of the national goal of 80% (48.6% in 2017). Understanding the barriers to vaccine acceptance, particularly related to parent resistance and their informational needs, is key to strengthening vaccine uptake among adolescents. Communicating evidence to parents and engaging them through narrative strategies may address some of the barriers during the decision-making process. Parents use social media as an important parenting tool and useful source for health information. In 2015, 75% of all parents used social media, and of these 1 in 4 used Twitter – equating to millions of parent users. We know that using social media data for surveillance has had early impact in public health. However, what is not known is the effectiveness of using large-scale social media data to inform a targeted social media intervention to support HPV vaccine uptake. This study will advance the growing field by evaluating the efficacy of an innovative narrative-focused intervention designed to communicate evidence and information about the HPV vaccine for parents who use social media as a health information source. The approach is informed by narrative engagement theory that posits narratives strengthen knowledge and promote engagement through storytelling by tapping into feelings of empathy, identification, and transportation. We will evaluate the efficacy of our Twitter-based pilot intervention in a randomized controlled trial that will enroll 600 parents/caregivers of children ages 9-14, whose child(ren) has not started the vaccine series. Our central hypothesis is that exposure to narrative-focused exemplar messages will lead to greater intention to vaccinate, and subsequently increased rates of vaccination in the intervention group compared to parents in the comparison group, who receive non-narrative HPV vaccine information (i.e., existing HPV vaccine information developed for Twitter). We will use a Twitter-based Community Advisory Board, virtual focus groups, and existing Twitter messages developed by the HPV Roundtable to inform narrative-focused message development. The proposed study will address three specific aims: 1) Develop narrative-focused scientific exemplars for HPV vaccine communication utilizing existing online messages and community engagement on Twitter; 2) Quantify differences in engagement, intention to vaccinate, and self-reported vaccination between parents exposed to the narrative-focused scientific exemplars and parents exposed to non-narrative scientific messages; 3) Collect and analyze longitudinal participant metadata to measure Twitter activity during the study period. This study will impact the field of cancer prevention generally and HPV vaccination specifically by establishing the efficacy of narrative-focused health messaging campaign on social media, using a Twitter-based parent-engagement strategy.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = -$11,744 )
2025	2022	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS	1125 W MAPLE ST STE 316	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	000	5	3/12/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$11,744
														Subtotal = -$11,744

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = -$4,748 )
2023	2022	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM	1125 WEST MAPLE STE 210	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	000	5	11/15/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
2023	2020	DREXEL UNIVERSITY	3141 CHESTNUT ST	PHILADELPHIA	PA	19104	PHILADELPHIA	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	001	2	2/2/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$4,748
														Subtotal = -$4,748

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $402,073 )
2022	2022	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM	1125 WEST MAPLE STE 210	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	003	5	8/30/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$402,073
2022	2021	DREXEL UNIVERSITY	3141 CHESTNUT ST	PHILADELPHIA	PA	19104	PHILADELPHIA	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	001	3	1/28/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$9,793
2022	2021	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM	1125 WEST MAPLE STE 210	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	002	4	1/28/2022	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$204,565
2022	2020	DREXEL UNIVERSITY	3141 CHESTNUT ST	PHILADELPHIA	PA	19104	PHILADELPHIA	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	000	2	1/28/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$194,772
														Subtotal = $402,073

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $422,512 )
2021	2021	DREXEL UNIVERSITY	3141 CHESTNUT ST	PHILADELPHIA	PA	19104	PHILADELPHIA	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	001	3	9/16/2021	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$412,719
2021	2021	DREXEL UNIVERSITY	3141 CHESTNUT ST	PHILADELPHIA	PA	19104	PHILADELPHIA	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	000	3	7/9/2021	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$422,512
2021	2021	UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM	1125 WEST MAPLE STE 210	FAYETTEVILLE	AR	72701	WASHINGTON	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	002	4	9/16/2021	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$412,719
														Subtotal = $422,512

Issue Date FY: 2020 ( Subtotal = $555,398 )
2020	2020	DREXEL UNIVERSITY	3141 CHESTNUT ST	PHILADELPHIA	PA	19104	PHILADELPHIA	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	000	2	7/31/2020	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$555,398
														Subtotal = $555,398

Issue Date FY: 2019 ( Subtotal = $532,090 )
2019	2019	DREXEL UNIVERSITY	3141 CHESTNUT ST	PHILADELPHIA	PA	19104	PHILADELPHIA	USA	Cancer Cause and Prevention Research	000	1	8/8/2019	NEW	$532,090
														Subtotal = $532,090

Grand Total All Awards = $1,895,581

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

Hashtag HPV: Engaging parents through social media to increase HPV vaccination

Award Number: R01CA229324

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/15/2021

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/31/2024

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer