Has Their Son Been Vaccinated? Beliefs About Other Parents Matter for Human Papillomavirus Vaccine

A quadrivalent vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV; i.e., HPV4) was approved for use in males in 2009 for the prevention of genital warts (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2010). Subsequently, in 2010, the Food and Drug Administration approved HPV4 vaccine for the prevention of anal cancer in both males and females (Food and Drug Administration, 2011). Although the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices issued a recommendation that HPV4 vaccine should be routinely given to males aged 11–12 years in 2011 (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2011), vaccination rates in young males have been slow to improve (Stokley et al., 2014). As of 2013, only about 35% of males ages 13–17 years had received at least one dose, and only 14% had completed the three-dose vaccine series (Stokley et al.)