At a glance
The American Cancer Society's peer-based initiative empowers rural communities to boost HPV vaccination rates, with over 250 participants working to protect more than 300,000 children from future HPV-related cancers.
Success Story
The American Cancer Society receives funding through IP21-2105 for the National HPV Vaccination Roundtable. They shared the story below about their capacity building efforts in rural communities.
57 million Americans call rural communities home. These individuals experience barriers to care and many health disparities, including a higher incidence of HPV-related cancers compared to people living in urban areas. Historically, rural communities lag 10% behind urban communities in uptake of the HPV vaccination series.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) and the ACS National HPV Vaccination Roundtable (HPVRT) have a long history of partnering with rural communities, including a 3-year project in the Mountain West, St. Jude's rural think tank engagement, and rural advisory group development.
To address the rural geographic lag in vaccination, ACS and HPVRT launched the Rural HPV Vaccination Learning Community in March 2024. The rural learning community is a 10-part quality improvement (QI) and evidence-based intervention (EBI) peer-based learning virtual series. The goals are to increase participants' knowledge, prioritization of HPV vaccination, and ability to implement best practices.
ACS crafted a model that encompasses short presentations, including QI technical assistance and a panel of 3-4 rural partners highlighting their experiences and challenges. The curriculum highlights vaccination data, aim statements, action plans, process mapping, gap analysis, exploring EBIs, and Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles.
The learning community has more than 250 participants from 181 organizations in 42 states across the US. The community participants have the potential to reach more than 300,000 patients aged 9–13 years.
Preliminary results are promising. In June 2024, 70% of respondents shared they have or will put together an HPV QI team and aim statement. During the most recent session in August 2024, 100% of respondents shared they were planning to implement vaccination EBIs in the next 6 months.
In 2025, ACS and HPVRT plan to continue the rural learning community and build upon their success. They want to protect kids today from developing HPV infections, pre-cancers, and cancers in the future!