Information from Community Health Champions
Creative Conversations at HPV Vaccine Workshop
This week saw the second of four workshops designed to understand the barriers to young people having the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
School pupils can get the vaccine in year 8 with parental consent but take up among young people in the City is significantly below the national average and as part of the Community Health Champions (CHC) project, we have been commissioned by the Public Health team at Stoke-on-Trent City Council to understand the reasons why..
Young people from YMCA North Staffordshire took part in a Creative Community Conversation session led by CHC and The Community Cast about the HPV vaccination to discuss barriers, benefits and opportunities.
The event sparked an interesting discussion about barriers to having the vaccine which included fear of needles (Trypanophobia) and mistrust of vaccines. Clinical lead at the Targeted Vaccination Team Diane Hughes also spoke with young people about Human Papillomavirus (HPV), what it is and some of the serious health conditions it can cause, including cervical cancer.
Feedback from the session was positive with one participant describing it as “very insightful”. Other comments included: “It made me think that young people don’t know much about HPV,” and “I loved to know that other people thought the same way.”
Opportunities discussed included talking about HPV and the vaccine in school sexual health sessions and offering catch up vaccinations to school pupils in Years 9 and 10.
Findings and recommendations from the workshops will be shared with Stoke-on-Trent City Council and health professionals.
