The It’sJust3HPV campaign was started by Dr. Denise Uyar, Gynecologic Oncologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, as the Principal Investigator (PI) who received the grant by the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program (HWPP). It is a collaboration between the Medical College of Wisconsin (Dr. Denise Uyar and Dr. Staci Young), Milwaukee Health Department and Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. It is a grant that supports programs to engage and educate the community about the HPV vaccine by way of Peer Educators.
HPV Vaccination Project
The logo was developed by the study participants.
The goal of the project is to inundate the community with positive, youth friendly messages about the commonality of the Human papillomavirus (HPV) and how to prevent it by getting the HPV vaccine.
Boys & Girls Clubs identified strong teen leaders and recruited them for the project. Those team leaders then recruited other teens to make up their teams of Peer Educators. Each team participated in trainings to gain a better understanding of HPV.
It’sJust3HPV came about as the name of the campaign because the HPV vaccine is given in 3 injections over 6 months. It’s just 3!
The teams were given three media options to choose from that they would then develop including public service announcement videos, brochures and billboards. The teams completed to see which campaign was most appealing to their peers. The community voted on their favorite campaign in each of the three media categories.
A premiere event was held at MATC’s downtown campus on May 9, 2013, where over 200 youth from throughout the city came together to learn about and discuss topics such as; teen pregnancy, STI’s treatable and curable, violence, and LGBTQ Awareness. Attendees were able to vote for their favorite group live via text messaging. The winning campaigns were announced and have gone into production. The products and campaign messages have been distributed.
“This project was the culmination of the joint efforts of the community and MCW working together on the common goal of increasing HPV vaccination rates in the community and preventing HPV related disease,” said Dr. Uyar.