Solutions to Increase Youth HPV Immunization

Funded by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC)

In early 2020, CPAC called on health care providers and communities across Canada to eliminate cervical cancer in Canada by 2040. To reach this goal, CPAC developed an Action Plan for the Elimination of Cervical Cancer and set a target of 90 percent of Canadian students fully vaccinated by 2025. For this target to be met, existing inequalities and barriers to HPV vaccination must be addressed.

Program Phases

CPAC funded the Urban Public Health Network to carry out the first phase of this project, which wrapped up in June of 2023 and involved working with partners across Canada to uncover these barriers at a sub-jurisdictional and sub-populational level.

Beginning in July of 2023, the second phase of this project will aim towards achieving system-level outcomes to increase HPV immunization in school-based and youth-focused programs and reaching Canada’s HPV immunization target in the Action Plan. This involves co-developing, implementing and evaluating innovative education and program delivery strategies for youth HPV immunization in a variety of jurisdictions that will contribute to:

Increased awareness and acceptability of the HPV vaccine, including amongst previously underimmunized populations;
Increased vaccination uptake in school-based HPV immunization programs, including amongst previously underimmunized populations;
Improved measurement and reporting of vaccination coverage rates by school-based HPV immunization programs to identify and inform program improvements.

Program Activities

UPHN’s 2023 activities include:

Completing Phase One of this project, including a final report that was sent to funders at CPAC in June.
Welcoming 40+ project partners and funders to Calgary for an end-of-project symposium to share findings and brainstorm for future implementation projects.
Presenting findings from our first phase of work at several conferences and meetings, including the International Papillomavirus Conference (Washington, DC), the Canadian Immunization Conference (Ottawa, ON), the World Congress on Public Health (Rome, Italy), the Journées annuelles de santé publique (Quebec City, QC), and the Pan-Canadian Summit on the Elimination of Cervical Cancer in Canada (Halifax, NS).
Co-developing plans for Phase Two of the project with our funders, which began in July of 2023. In this phase, CPAC will provide UPHN with $2 million dollars in funding over the next four years to support several implementation initiatives with public health partners across Canada.

Solutions to Increase Youth HPV Immunization

Program Phases

Program Activities

UPHN’s 2023 activities include:

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