Cervical Cancer Prevention among Latinas in a Post-HPV Vaccine World: Considering the Sociocultural Context

The Faces on Our Educational Materials: Real Stories behind the Messages

“…The qualitative value that our work contributes to the lives of our community participants in research and practice provides us with a wealth of stories to tell and creates meaning in people’s lived experiences. In particular, in Rosa’s example, it is evident that her experience of learning about cervical cancer and volunteering as a promotora was an empowering experience [1]. These two vignettes provided here are but a snapshot of a larger narrative that needs to be shared about the impact that cancer education can have on empowering women and saving lives.…”

HPV Vaccine Misperceptions Among Hispanics/Latinos in Southern California

“…Examining individual scale items, Hispanic had greater misperceptions around whether boys needed the vaccine, the appropriate age of administration, the safety of the vaccine, and its efficacy for cancer prevention. Future interventions focused on improving HPV vaccine uptake among Hispanics should focus on addressing these misperceptions given the important role that familism plays in influencing health behaviors in this community [24,25]. Medical providers and community health workers are ideally suited to carry out these interventions, which will ultimately prevent HPV-associated cancers that disproportionately impact the Hispanic population.…”

“…These included the utilization of random household selection, anonymous participation, bilingual study materials and staff, inclusion of community input, and direct assessment of misperceptions through a scale. This investigation of HPV vaccine community misperceptions among Hispanics is essential, as sociocultural factors like familismo/familism can influence health behaviors and ideologies [24,25].…”