Public health professionals from Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Councils engaged with young people (aged 16 to 24) at three local colleges through facilitating participatory workshops to enable them to express their own ideas for the best ways to raise awareness of the HPV vaccine. This resulted in development of a youth-led engagement plan outlining ways to encourage young people to engage with the HPV vaccination catch-up offer.
Background
The Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) HPV vaccine project was developed as part of wider work within BNSSG to respond to international, national and local priorities to improve the uptake and coverage of the HPV vaccination to help prevent HPV related cancers and reduce health inequalities. This aligns with the NHS ambition to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040.
BNSSG Integrated Vaccination Programme funded this project from their allocation of Vaccination Access and Inequalities funding from NHS England (NHSE).
The project contributes to BNSSG Health and Wellbeing Strategies whereby councils are committed to addressing persistent inequalities in population health. BNSSG is home to a diverse population of around 1.1 million people living across urban and rural areas with wide variations in deprivation and health outcomes.
The project responds to the fact previous local HPV campaigns / projects have placed less emphasis on BNSSG college populations and there is a priority for young people to catch-up on their missed HPV vaccine. By adopting a youth-led, college-based approach, the project aimed to empower local young people to share their ideas for effective communication and engagement strategies to promote the HPV vaccine among 16 to 24-year-olds. These insights were used to develop a youth-led engagement plan for implementation by key stakeholders including those involved in vaccination programme delivery.
Project approach
The project aimed, through a series of four participatory workshops at each college, to build trust and rapport between public health professionals and young people for meaningful engagement, while increasing participating students’ awareness of HPV, the HPV vaccine and the local catch-up offer.
Public health professionals from BNSSG Councils led the planning and delivery of the project. To ensure system-wide collaboration, a task and finish group was established to guide the project, oversee planning and delivery of participatory workshops, and support implementation of the engagement plan. This group included representatives from BNSSG local authority public health teams, three local colleges (City of Bristol College, Weston College and SGS College), local immunisation providers (Sirona Care and Health and the BNSSG Integrated Vaccination Programme), the Avon Local Medical Committee, and an academic from the University of Bristol. The project also enabled two public health apprentices to develop their skills and experience.
To build an evidence base for the project, an informal review of existing local and regional evidence was undertaken to understand enablers and barriers to HPV vaccine uptake. This analysis supported planning for engagement with young people from priority groups in the participatory workshops.
The project enabled the workshop participants to generate their own ideas on how best to engage 16 to 24-year-olds in BNSSG with the HPV vaccination catch-up offer. This has informed the development of a youth-led engagement plan, which will be implemented with available resources. Project outputs will be shared with key stakeholders to ensure young people’s voices inform local practice.
In the longer term, it is anticipated the project, in particular the ideas in the youth-led engagement plan, will contribute towards a sustained increase in awareness and uptake of the HPV vaccine among 16 to 24-year-olds across BNSSG, alongside contributing to a reduction in disparities in vaccination awareness and coverage. Youth-led approaches will help strengthen trust and engagement towards health services, contributing to wider work towards a reduction in HPV-related cancer incidence.
Impact
In total, the project involved 44 young people in the participatory workshops across three colleges in BNSSG from a range of ages (from the age 16 to 24 cohort), backgrounds, and geographic areas. Most participants demonstrated increased knowledge and understanding of HPV and the vaccination offer after the workshops, with a clear rise in those reporting confidence in knowing how to access catch-up vaccination in BNSSG.
Importantly, the project created opportunities for young people to share their views, with many participants reporting they felt their perspectives were heard and could contribute to public health communications and decision-making.
It wasn’t anticipated that some students would ask how to check their vaccination status and some were supported to do so during the participatory workshops. At least one young person accessed the HPV vaccine / other missed immunisations following engagement with information provided by workshop facilitators.
The project successfully strengthened relationships with key stakeholders, including immunisation providers and college representatives. For example, immunisation providers interacted with college students and staff at the participatory workshops. These partnerships will enable future collaborative work.
Learning
The project highlighted the importance of working collaboratively with college staff, who played a key role in the planning and success of the participatory workshops. For example, through their existing relationships, college staff encouraged the students to actively participate and advised on how to best engage the different cohorts.
Thirteen key ideas were generated by the participating students for ways to raise awareness of the HPV vaccine and encourage 16 to 24-year-olds in BNSSG to engage with the HPV vaccination catch-up offer. While participants expressed a strong preference for social media as a key communication channel, they also highlighted the continued importance of in-person activities, suggesting that a combination of approaches is needed.
Social media platforms such as TikTok were identified as highly influential. Therefore, it will be important when planning for digital engagement to use these platforms through a collaborative, system-wide approach.
Small incentives (e.g. vouchers, snacks or giveaways) were found to support engagement across workshops. These were clearly positioned as appreciation for involvement and not linked to vaccination uptake.
A key learning point was the importance of supporting health ownership among young people. Some workshop participants were unsure of their HPV vaccination status. This highlighted that young people may need support for learning how to take responsibility for their own health and what this involves. Enabling young people to easily check their vaccination status (e.g. via the NHS app) was identified as critical.
The young people’s suggestions highlighted the value of reaching young people through spaces and formats they already use. Engagement is likely more effective when delivered through familiar channels, (colleges, social media platforms, community settings etc.), rather than expecting young people to seek out information independently.
Overall, the project demonstrated the importance of hearing the voice of young people as their range of ideas highlight that a multi-channel, sustained approach to engagement is likely to be most effective.
Although these insights were developed in the context of the HPV vaccination programme, they are broadly applicable to other work with 16 to 24-year-olds such as health promotion or campaigns. However, further consideration is needed to understand the extent to which ideas / learnings are applicable to other areas.
To request the BNSSG HPV vaccine project youth-led engagement plan please contact: [email protected]