Storytelling project looks to promote school HPV vaccine clinics

February 9, 2025 | By Lisa Scagliotti 

In an effort to promote upcoming free school vaccine clinics, the Harwood Unified Union School District is participating in a local researcher’s project to involve community members who would share their personal stories about vaccinations. 

Parents and guardians have received communications from the Harwood district with a short survey gauging interest in holding vaccine clinics in the next few months to immunize students against human papillomavirus known as HPV. The vaccine for human papillomavirus aims to protect individuals from several types of cancer later in life. 

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 13 million Americans become infected with HPV each year. The CDC says that the virus is known to cause about 36,000 cases of cancer annually such as cervical and throat cancer.

The HPV vaccine requires either two or three doses depending on the age when it is administered. It can be given starting at age 9 with the recommended age being 11-12 years old, according to the Vermont Department of Health.  

More information about the HPV vaccine is online on the Vermont Health Department website and the CDC website. 

Information from Harwood school nurses to families explains that the school district plans to work with the Vermont Health Department to conduct two free vaccine clinics over the next several months. 

“The HPV vaccine can prevent 90% of HPV-related male and female cancers,” the school message states. “The HPV vaccine has been available since 2006 and is safe and effective. Research shows that school-based clinics help boost HPV vaccination rates by making vaccination convenient.”

School officials note that the clinics can be a way for families to either start or finish their children’s HPV vaccines.  

Allison Conyers, Harwood’s lead school nurse, explained that the district got involved with this vaccine and research effort due to a local connection. One of the main team members in the storytelling project is Waterbury resident Matthew Dugan, a public health communications specialist based at UVM’s medical school. 

Dugan explained that his organization's mission is to improve public health in rural northern New England, so it conducts various initiatives in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. “We are interested in HPV vaccination because it prevents six kinds of cancer and yet as a nation, we are extremely under-vaccinated and it's even worse in rural areas of the country,” he said. “We are testing a hypothesis regarding evidence-based persuasive storytelling and the ability of this communication approach to improve vaccination rates. We started with HUUSD because ... I live in Waterbury!”

Conyers explained that HPV is not a vaccine required for school attendance, so the district does not have specific data on the HPV vaccination rate among students in the Harwood district. However, recent reports show that about 60% of Vermont adolescents have completed the vaccine series. A CDC goal aims for that to be 80% by the year 2030, she said. 

Dugan said research shows that hesitation and distance to a primary care office and scheduling play key roles in that rate being low. School-based clinics and information from familiar sources can help bridge those gaps, he noted. 

Recent messages to parents have included information about the vaccine clinics, the three-question survey, and a memo about the research project. 

The survey asks parents and guardians how likely they would be to take advantage of an HPV vaccine clinic offered at school. It also asks parents to indicate their preference for the timing – during school, after school or on a weekend, for example – and whether parents think school vaccine clinics are a good way to keep children up-to-date on immunizations. 

Conyers said she’s had a positive response from parents so far. The clinics would be the first school vaccination clinics held since the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Storytelling workshop ahead 

The Harwood school district memo says it will participate in Dugan’s research project to raise awareness and potentially increase participation in the HPV vaccine clinics.

“The Northern New England Clinical & Translational Research Network has been conducting research as well as creating a network of partners with the goal of developing a communication and clinic approach to raise human papillomavirus,” the school district said. “These partners include researchers at UVM and the Larner College of Medicine, the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program, the Vermont Department of Health, and the Harwood Unified Union School District.”

The memo about the research project explains it this way: “The communication aspect of this involves testing a concept known as evidence-based persuasive storytelling. This approach is friendly and non-controversial; it wraps pro-vaccination messages into stories delivered by local voices.”
The information further details that the researchers are applying for a grant from the National Institutes of Health for such initiatives and that a workshop this month in Waterbury would be a “proof-of-concept HPV vaccination intervention” to submit as part of that application. 

“That’s where you come in,” the memo tells parents. “Our goal is to use local pro-vaccination stories to help promote an in-school popup HPV vaccination clinic held this March at Crossett Brook Middle School.”

Those interested in participating in the storytelling exercise are invited to attend an evening workshop on Feb. 18 at Brookside Primary School. There is no charge to attend the two-hour session, 5:30-7:30 p.m., which will include dinner. 

The request to recruit participants explains that “there’s a science to storytelling” and that research has found that “pro-vaccination stories, told by local voices, can have a uniquely persuasive effect.”

Participants in the evening workshop will receive direction in sharing their experiences in the form of short stories of about 200 words, the announcement says. 

It describes research is a “slow, careful process” and says that the model being explored could have applications both with boosting participation in the HPV vaccine and with other immunizations: “...if evidence-based persuasive storytelling proves to be effective, you will have not only helped protect Vermont kids from a variety of cancers, you may also have contributed to the development of a new approach to getting people vaccinated for a variety of diseases, both locally and far beyond.” 

Should Dugan’s team win the federal grant, he said it would fund a five-year program with more Vermont schools. Asked whether he has heard of any changes to the grant program in recent weeks due to changes in public health programs at the federal level, Dugan said he’s still planning to submit the grant application for the five-year program as planned. If his organization’s funding were to “disappear tomorrow,” he said, the clinics would still take place because they would be run by the Vermont Health Department. 

He said he hopes that the storytelling effort will remain a worthwhile project for federal public health funding to support. “In a world of contentious communication, this respectful, non-partisan, locally based approach featuring community voices could hold promise for helping communities everywhere raise vaccination rates,” he said.  

The Harwood district has not scheduled the March clinic yet. Conyers said a follow-up clinic would take place later in the spring and a follow-up clinic in the fall is also possible.