Increasing awareness and uptake of the MenB vaccine on a large university campus

Objective: At a large public university, we aimed to evaluate an intervention designed to increase serogroup B meningococcal (MenB) vaccine uptake and awareness. Methods: Using a pretest-posttest design with a double posttest, we evaluated an intervention conducted by a local foundation and the Flor...

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Published in:Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics 2021-09, Vol.17 (9), p.3239-3246
Main Authors: Richardson, Eric, Ryan, Kathleen A., Lawrence, Robert M., Harle, Christopher A., Desai, Shivani M., Livingston, Melvin D., Rawal, Amit, Staras, Stephanie A. S.
Format: Article
Language:eng
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Summary:Objective: At a large public university, we aimed to evaluate an intervention designed to increase serogroup B meningococcal (MenB) vaccine uptake and awareness. Methods: Using a pretest-posttest design with a double posttest, we evaluated an intervention conducted by a local foundation and the Florida Department of Health that distributed MenB vaccine on campus and conducted an educational campaign. Prior to intervention activities, we recruited students to complete a survey about their MenB knowledge and attitudes. For survey participants who provided contact information, we sent two follow-up surveys and assessed MenB vaccine records. We used chi-square tests, adjusted for nonindependence, to compare preintervention to postintervention (three-month and one-year) vaccination and attitudes. Results: Among the 686 students with accessible vaccine records, MenB vaccine initiation increased 9% (from 24% to 33%) and completion increased 8% (from 13% to 21%) from before the intervention to one year after the intervention. When restricting to students who completed the relevant follow-up surveys, the percentage of students who heard of the MenB vaccine increased by 15% (p > .001) from before the intervention to three months after (n = 188 students) and maintained a 10% increase (p > .001) one year after the intervention (n = 261 students). Among students that heard of the MenB vaccine, the percentage of students who thought they needed the MenB vaccine even though they received the MenACWY increased 14% (p = .03) by the three-month postintervention survey and up to 18% by the one-year follow-up (p = .002). Conclusions: A university-wide, on-campus vaccination and educational campaign increased college students' MenB vaccine initiation, completion, and knowledge. Clinicaltrials.gov ID: NCT02975596.
ISSN:2164-5515
2164-554X