Archived

This content is available here for research, reference, and/or recordkeeping.

Abstract

Limited education and healthcare access are major contributors to Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination disparities among African American adolescents. The Immunization Neighborhood (IN) involves enhanced communication and collaboration among providers to address people’s needs by expanding access points and education to increase vaccination. Because needs of immunization providers and parents to effectively collaborate are unknown, this study explored the feasibility of and processes needed for IN utilization across key partners: pediatricians, pharmacists, school nurses, health department staff, and African American parent–child dyads. We conducted a semi-structured interviews in a qualitative, descriptive study with a purposive sample of 30 African American parent–child dyads and 37 immunization providers in Middle Tennessee. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) guided inductive-deductive thematic analysis. We identified facilitators and barriers to IN utilization for four CFIR domains: (1) Intervention characteristics; (2) Outer setting; (3) Inner setting; and (4) Individual characteristics. Across CFIR domains and partners, key perceived facilitators include convenience, accessibility, extended hours, partner coordination, and existing subsidized programs. Perceived barriers included fragmented vaccination tracking, limited vaccine registry interoperability, existing policies, and lack of knowledge and trust in immunization providers and settings. Our study highlights the need for multi-component, collaborative, and patient-centered strategies for IN implementation to improve adolescent HPV vaccination rates, especially among African American adolescents. Policy changes to reduce out-of-pocket expenses, increase insurance coverage, require reporting to state immunization registries, encourage collaborative practices, and allow HPV vaccine delivery in schools could potentially enhance IN impact.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Notes/Citation Information

© 2026 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2026.2661114

Funding Information

This project was supported by a National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences under award numbers [UL1 TR000445] and [3UL1 TR000445-11S1], Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality under award number [1K12HS022990-01], and National Cancer Institute under award number [1K01CA237748-01]. The funding sponsors had no role in the design and conduct of the study, collection, management, analysis, or interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approved of the manuscript or decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the National Institutes of Health.

Download

Share

COinS