Evaluation of a radionovela to promote HPV vaccine awareness and knowledge among parents of Latina adolescents

Background: Latinas have a 1.5-fold increased cervical cancer incidence and mortality compared to non-Hispanic white women. To prevent cervical cancer, the CDC recommends the HPV vaccine to adolescent girls. Few culturally-tailored Spanish language HPV vaccine awareness programs have been developed and evaluated.

Methods: Hispanic parents of daughters aged 9-17 were recruited at local community events and randomized to listen to an HPV vaccine radionovela or to another public service announcement. Participants completed pretest/posttest surveys. The radionovela featured dialogues on the HPV vaccine between an adolescent daughter, her classmate, her parents, and health providers.

Results: Participants included 88 Latino parents (78 women and 10 men; mean age=40, range: 22-62; mean years of education=9.4, range: 0-16; most with incomes less than $20,000 per year). Pre- and post-test comparisons within the HPV radionovela arm showed greater awareness of HPV (71% vs. 53%, p=.045), greater agreement that their daughter is not too young for the vaccine (60% vs. 42%, p=.02), and that their daughter's other parent would support vaccine uptake (93% vs. 73%, p=.01). Compared to parents in the control arm, more participants in the radionovela arm responded correctly to knowledge questions; they were more likely to confirm that HPV is a common infection (69% vs. 48%, p=.003), to deny that women are able to detect HPV infection (52% vs. 30%, p=.003), and to know vaccine age recommendations (86% vs. 67%, p=.002) after listening to the radionovela.

Conclusions: The HPV vaccine radionovela improved HPV and HPV vaccine knowledge and attitudes among rural Hispanic parents.