Working to ‘Spread the Word & Not the Disease’ - Heather Gainforth

During the course of my Master’s and undergraduate degree, I have focused on educating the public about the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the word and it is estimated that 75% of Canadians will get an HPV infection in their lifetime. HPV is contracted by skin-to-skin contact and it is the cause of cervical cancer and genital warts. In fact, during the past decade, studies have shown a firm causal link between cervical cancer and HPV (Bosch, Lorincz, Munoz, Meijer, & Shah, 2002) and HPV RNA has been identified in all investigated specimens of invasive cervical cancer (Bosch & Sanjose, 2007). Yet, despite this strong scientific evidence, public knowledge regarding HPV is lacking (Friedman & Shepeard, 2007).

In June 2006, Merck pharmaceuticals released a prophylactic vaccination that provides protection against HPV strains 16 and 18, which are classified as the top two of the fifteen cancer causing high risk types of HPV, and types 6 and 11 which cause genital warts (Munoz et al., 2003). Yet, given the lack of knowledge about HPV, many individuals are still unaware of how to prevent and protect themselves against HPV (Friedman & Shepeard, 2007). It is therefore necessary to investigate techniques to disseminate information about HPV and the vaccine.
As many other graduate students in the department can attest to, I am dedicated to educating the public about how to protect themselves against HPV. My undergraduate thesis and independent project have focused on how to disseminate information about HPV to young adults using a technique called message framing. In short, message framing refers to how messages are conveyed (Rothman & Salovey, 1997). I plan to continue to apply message framing to promote the HPV vaccine in my Master’s thesis.

It is my hope that one day my research may lead to improved health messages regarding HPV and the HPV vaccination. While I cannot offer concrete results yet, I continue to stand on my soap box telling everyone I know about HPV and asking everyone to pass on my message (and not HPV)!

Stay safe,
Heather

Want to know more?
http://www.hpvinfo.ca/