About 58 percent of the parents of adolescents who have not received the vaccine against human papillomavirus say they do not plan to begin the vaccine series, a new analysis of survey data shows.
Researchers examined survey data from the 2017-2018 National Immunization Study. They examined responses from the parents and caregivers of 82,297 U.S. adolescents, ages 13 to 17 years. Of the adolescents, 30,558 (37.1 percent) had not received the HPV vaccine, and 9,073 (10.8 percent) had received only one dose of the two-dose HPV vaccine series.
Researchers found that parents of 58 percent of the adolescents who were not vaccinated against HPV said they would not start the vaccine series. In Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Utah, hesitancy toward vaccinating their children against HPV was even higher, at more than 65 percent.
Parents of 23.5 percent of the children who received only one HPV vaccine dose said they had no intention of completing the HPV vaccine series.
The researchers published their findings in The Lancet Public Health journal.
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