HPV vaccine acceptability among Latinas on the Texas-Mexico border

A5

The Texas-Mexico border has one of the highest cervical cancer mortality rates in the US. If a majority of young women receive the recently available human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates should dramatically decline. We conducted a cross-sectional survey from June 2006-August 2007 to determine whether Latinas who were (n=319) and were not HPV positive (n=220) differed in their opinions about the HPV vaccine. A slightly lower percentage of women had heard of the HPV vaccine (58%) as had heard of HPV itself (60%). Although over 90% of women indicated they would have their daughters and sons vaccinated against warts/cervical cancer, women who were HPV positive were more likely than women who were HPV negative to do so (age-adjusted odds ratio [OR] 5.0, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.4-18.8). When asked about the proposed Texas law requiring girls receive the HPV vaccine before entry into sixth grade, HPV positive women were also more likely than HPV negative women to report they were in favor of the requirement (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.4-4/9). Our findings indicate that most Latinas (>90%) living on the Texas-Mexico border find the HPV vaccine acceptable for their own daughters and sons. The challenge of informing the general public about the vaccine and paying for this vaccine remain.