Influence of Affect on HPV Vaccination Intentions: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) causes 70% of cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts cases afflicting approximately 50% of sexually active individuals. One vaccine licensed by the FDA in 2006 protects against four HPV types [16, 18, 11, and 6] responsible for the majority of cervical cancer and genital warts cases. The CDC recommends the vaccine to 11 to 12 year old girls before the initiation of sexual intercourse. Thus, the decision falls largely on parents. Vaccination has unprecedented potential to reduce the ethnic health disparities that exist in cervical cancer rates. Cervical cancer incidence is two to fourfold among Latina and African-American women than non-Latina white women. We recruited 150 mothers (50 Hispanic, 50 non-Hispanic white, and 50 non-Hispanic African-American) who where the parent or legal guardian of a daughter who had not received the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Mothers were recruited from city health department clinics. The purpose of our study was to understand the influence of attributes of the vaccine, vaccination barriers, and norms on affect and the subsequent influence of affect on an overall evaluation of the vaccine and intentions to obtain the vaccine. To our knowledge, the influence of affect on vaccination intentions has not been studied. Our results suggest that attributes of the vaccine and vaccination barriers predict positive and negative affect which in turn predicts vaccination evaluations and intentions. However, cross-cultural differences emerged in the relationship between specific vaccine attributes and barriers to vaccination. Our result has important intervention implications.