Two new studies should help health care providers, such as Cinergy Health, to target their services to minority groups in a better way. A recent study from UCLA and one from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, show that there are lower rates of HPV vaccination in low-income populations. In addition, they show specific vaccine barriers in these communities that might help to increase vaccine uptake.
"We need interventions that help primary care teams to identify eligible patients and encourage the teen to receive all three doses. We need to take advantage of every opportunity where a teen comes into a clinic and offer all recommended adolescent vaccines," said Jasmin A. Tiro, Ph.D., assistant professor of clinical sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.
The UCLA study found that minority groups do receive the HPV vaccine as often as the national averages, but that they lack much of the knowledge that they could easily acquire about the vaccine. The Dallas study found that, in low-income populations where the vaccine is certainly available, there is still a poor uptake of the three-dose vaccine and a lack of encouragement to get vaccinated by health care providers.
