Health Behavior Frameworks Describing HPV Vaccine Uptake in Adults: A Scoping Review

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease in the United States, and it has been shown to cause a number of different cancers, namely cervical. Fortunately, there is a highly efficacious vaccine that is available to adolescents and adults up to age 45. Vaccination rates in adults have increased over the years but are still low, especially in men. There is a need to understand HPV vaccine-seeking behaviors in adults to better address their concerns, beliefs, and barriers. The purpose of this scoping review is to provide a synthesis of the current literature on health behavior frameworks that have been used to describe HPV vaccine uptake in adults. This review also covers the socioeconomic barriers of adults getting the vaccine. For this review, 33 articles were found and included. The theory of planned behavior, health belief model, and social cognitive theory were the most commonly seen frameworks in the literature. Theoretical constructs that significantly predicted HPV vaccine behavior across the included studies were social norms, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, perceived benefits, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived barriers, and self-efficacy. Major socioeconomic factors that were described were provider recommendation, knowledge, age, gender, race, awareness, and marital status. This information is critical for public health efforts to better target the adult population with HPV vaccine information and awareness. It is also necessary for providers to better understand patients and their potential barriers to getting the HPV vaccine.