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In honor of Cervical Health Awareness Month in January, the Immunization Program would like to remind providers that theHPV vaccine is cancer prevention! Remember that HPV not only causes the majority of cervical cancers, but also cancers of the vagina, vulva, penis, anus, rectum, and oropharynx. Every year in the United States, HPV causes around 31,000 cancers in men and women. HPV vaccination can prevent most of the cancers (about 28,000) from occurring. You can find more information on HPV and cancer here.
While it is not January 2018 (yet!), we wanted to make sure you were aware of the following campaign and associated webinars occurring next month:
- A blog article will be released on January 2nd on the DPH Public Health Blog targeting a general audience focused on how HPV vaccine is cancer prevention. The blog article will include a video from the Iowa Department of Public Health featuring HPV-related cancer survivors. Feel free to share this blog within your practice, send it to parents/patients, and/or put in any other communication to your staff and patients. You can also follow DPH on Twitterto see immunization related tweets throughout the month.
- MDPH will be running a digital billboard in 63 locations across 20 cities in Massachusetts to highlight the message“HPV vaccine is cancer prevention!” The billboard points people to the newly updated general audience HPV vaccine page on our Immunization Program website. The friendly url is http://www.mass.gov/dph/hpvvax. The HPV billboard is at the bottom of this email for your reference.
- Members of the Massachusetts Oral HPV Prevention taskforce will be presenting on the next CDC #PreTeenVax and VICNetwork webinar entitled “An Interprofessional Approach to HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer Prevention Education” on Monday, January 8, 2018 at 12:00 – 1:00 pm EST.
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- Description of Webinar: There are approximately 31,500 cancers attributed to HPV each year and that number continues to rise. Oropharyngeal cancer has surpassed cervical cancer as the most common HPV-related cancer. Rates of oropharyngeal cancer have increased more than 225% in the last few decades. More than 70% of oropharyngeal cancers are related to HPV infection. The Massachusetts Oral HPV Prevention Taskforce was created to build connections between medical and dental professionals to increase HPV vaccination rates, decrease HPV-related cancer, and educate both providers and patients on oropharyngeal cancers. Most dental professionals are aware of the role of smoking and alcohol consumption as risk factors for oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancer; however, dedicated, trained dental professionals may be underutilized assets in the realm of HPV education and oropharyngeal cancer prevention. To this end, the Massachusetts Oral HPV Prevention Taskforce aims to educate and empower the dental community with relevant, medically sound cancer prevention information to educate patients to make well-informed oral health and cancer preventive decisions.
- Learning Objectives:
- Describe action steps to build a partnership with dental providers on HPV education and the importance of HPV vaccination
- Identify the relationship between oral HPV infections and head and neck cancers
- Discuss ways that dental professionals can include HPV education in patient visits, including an overview of helpful resources
- Determine the effectiveness of an HPV prevention campaign via interprofessional education and consider strategies for sustainability
- Speakers:
- Rebecca Vanucci, MA, Immunization Outreach Coordinator, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
- Alessandro Villa, DDS, Ph.D., MPH, Instructor in Oral Medicine, Infection, and Immunity, Harvard School of Dental Medicine and Associate Surgeon Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana Farmer Cancer Center
- Rosie Wagner, DDS, Private Practice in Somerville, MA
- Lisa Bennett Johnson, RDH, MS, MPH, Research Registered Dental Hygienist, Oral Medicine and Dentistry Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
- The MCAAP Immunization Initiative will be hosting a webinar entitled “Using Assessment, Feedback, Incentives and eXchange (AFIX) to Improve HPV Vaccination Rates in Your Practice” on Thursday, January 11, 2018, 12:00-1:00 p.m. EST.
- Learning Objectives
- Discuss the key components of the AFIX quality improvement process;
- Review evidence-based strategies for addressing vaccine hesitancy and refusal and improving vaccine confidence in their practice;
- Explain how they can utilize reports from the Massachusetts Immunization Information System (MIIS) to review their practice’s HPV immunization rates compared to Massachusetts immunization rates from the National Immunization Survey (NIS-Teen);
- Summarize the general findings to date of the use of AFIX for improving HPV vaccination rates in Massachusetts.
- Speakers:
- Katherine Hsu, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Division of STD Prevention & HIV/AIDS, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
- Kathleen Shattuck, MPH, Assessment Coordinator, Immunization Program, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
- Learning Objectives
- CDC recently released their 12th HPV Quarterly Report and you can find it attached to this email.
- Would you like to get more involved in activities to increase HPV vaccination? Become a part of the Massachusetts HPV Initiative! Please email me (Rebecca Vanucci) at rebecca.vanucci@state.ma.us if you would like more information.
