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You Are the Key to HPV Cancer Prevention

Also: HPV Vaccine is Cancer Prevention (clinician outreach)

“You are the key to HPV cancer prevention”

CDC campaign launched in May 2013 to get pediatricians and family physicians to give a strong, same-day recommendation for HPV vaccine to parents of 11-12-year-olds. It provided a clinician resource website with "Tips and Time-savers for Talking with Parents about HPV Vaccine", a slide presentation and training video, webinars, conference exhibits, and print and digital ads in medical media.

Years
2013–now
Country
United States
Topic
Cancer screeningVaccination
Asks people to
StartTalk to someone
Strategy
Self efficacySimple instruction
Channel
Clinical settingEventsPrintWebsite
Audience
Clinicians
Pediatricians, family physicians, nurses and other immunization providers who see preteens; parents are the downstream audience.

Evidence

ProcessUnknown

Survey of 355 Florida pediatric and family physicians (Scherr 2016): 57.9% were aware of the CDC website and fewer than half of those used it; 55.3% knew the messages and 31.5% of those used them, though 79-93% said they would use a given message. No evaluation linking the campaign to HPV vaccination rates found.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases) Federal government, funder and creator

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Executions (individual ads)

Sources

  1. Scherr CL, Augusto B, Ali K, Malo TL, Vadaparampil ST. Provider-reported acceptance and use of the CDC messages and materials to support HPV vaccine recommendation for adolescent males. Vaccine 34(35):4229-4234 evaluation · 2016 · DOI 10.1016/j.vaccine.2016.06.037 · PMID 27340095

Research notes

Clinician-facing campaign. Discovered 2026-10-22 (clinician-campaigns pass). PMC5503451 fetched 2026-10-22 (CDC launched "You are the Key" in May 2013; website with nine Tips and Time-savers messages); Search snippets (CDC NPHIC conference abstracts, not opened) report 226M ad impressions and ~550,000 click-throughs for the clinician outreach, a 701-pediatrician formative survey, and a 2022 web-on-demand training video - add when verified. Topic cancer-screening used because HPV vaccination is framed as cancer prevention; vaccination is primary. YouTube executions are CDC-channel videos about 7-11 years old; years not confirmed. Procurement search 2026-10-22 (USAspending API): no CDC award names 'You Are the Key'. Possible vendor (contract HHSD2002007200310001, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 'Promoting adolescent immunization to parents, preteens and teens, and healthcare providers using health communication', Sep 2012-Dec 2014, USD 2.23M; https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_HHSD2002007200310001_7523_HHSD200200720031I_7523). Search results describe the CE webinar as designed by the National AHEC Organization with CDC (search snippet, not opened). Not credited.

Record cases/cdc-hpv-you-are-the-key.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign