Our research focuses on HPV vaccine initiation among low-income and minority groups in public healthcare settings. Our work to address racial/ethnic disparities in HPV vaccination rates in children and adolescents and in cervical cancer screenings in adult women has made us a world leader in HPV-related cancer prevention among minority communities. Presently we have two HPV vaccine studies funded by Merck MISP.
See all of our Pediatric Research programs.
Contact
PI: Natalie Pierre Joseph, MD, MPH: napierre@bu.edu
Project Manager: Johane Seide: Johane.seide@bmc.org
Investigators
Department of Pediatrics
General Clinical Research Unit (GCRU)
- Ridiane Denis, MD, RN
Research projects
- 2022-2028 Sponsor: Merck grant MISP # 61418 An exploratory open-label clinical trial evaluating the immunogenicity and safety of the 9vHPV 2-dose vaccine regimen in children aged 4–8 years.
- 2020-2024 Sponsor: Merck grant MISP #59402 An Open-Label Clinical Trial Evaluating the Immunogenicity of the 9vHPV Vaccination Regimen over 6 months Among Women Aged 16 to 45 years old, An Exploratory Immunogenicity Study ; NCT04206813
- 07/01/2022 – 06/30/2027 Conversational Agents to Improve HPV Vaccine Acceptance in Primary Care, Funder: NIH, R01 CA273208-01.
Major Goals: In this project we will adapt the Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) technology to produce English and Spanish smartphone ECAs for HPV vaccination (ECA-HPV) to provide vaccine recommendations and motivational interviewing to parents/guardians and vaccine-eligible adolescents and facilitate communication with clinic staff. We will evaluate ECA-HPV in a randomized controlled trial for HPV-vaccine eligible adolescents aged 9-12 to evaluate ECA-HPV, comparing usual care versus usual care plus four design variants of the ECA-HPV. - 04/23/2021 – 01/31/2025 Community-based design and evaluation of a Conversational Agent to Promote SARS-COV2 Vaccination in Black Churches. Funder: NIH, R01 MD016882
Major Goals: We will collaborate with the Black Ministerial Alliance TenPoint (BMATP) of Greater Boston to develop a smartphone-based Embodied Conversational Agent app that provides education about SARS-CoV-2 and influenza vaccination, and motivates vaccination completion, following public health guidelines. We will evaluate the intervention in a clinical trial involving 600 congregants from 12 predominately African American churches.