Impact of the notice of the high council of public health amending the age of human papillomavirus vaccination on teen vaccination rates

Background

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccination rate in France is low, and has decreased between 2010 and 2011. The High Council Of Public Health (Haut Conseil à la Santé Publique, HCSP) has published a notice which modified the recommendations on the age of first fixed vaccination from 14 to 11 years, and the catch up vaccination from 15-23 to 12-20 years. Our study aimed to assess the change in HPV vaccination rates following the HCSP notice among girls of 11-19 years old.

Methods

Retrospective study of HPV vaccines reimbursements from SNIIRAM databases (Système National d'Information Inter-Régime de l'Assurance Maladie) at the regional level (Midi-Pyrenees), 291 working days before and after the publication of new recommendations. Main outcome measures: Dispensing records were those of the health insurance database. Medical prescribing is mandatory for eligibility to reimbursement. Birth year, prescriber specialty, pack code and date of dispensing were collected.

Results

after the publication of the notice of HCSP, no significant increase was observed in HPV vaccination rates across all age groups: 3.62% of the girls aged 11-19 years of study area received at least one vaccine dose before the recommendations vs. 6.05% after (p-value = 0.75). The percentage of prescribing general practitioners has not increased.

Conclusion

There was no significant increase in HPV vaccine prescribing rates despite the extension of the recommended age range. The impact of this change in the study area was modest and did not allow to sufficiently increasing the immunization coverage. Given the low HPV vaccination rates in France, these results provide important evidence to inform public health interventions to increase HPV vaccination.