Join us August 13 and August 20 at 1-2 p.m. Eastern Time / noon-1 p.m. Central Time for a two-part webinar series HPV Vaccination for Catch-up Populations. While back-to-school vaccination efforts often center on children for on-time vaccination, this webinar series expands the conversation to include young adults aged 18-26 years who may be starting college or trade school, moving into their own place, and/or starting a new position by exploring strategies to improve HPV vaccine uptake by capitalizing on their empowerment and autonomy.

This quarter’s rural HPV vaccination updates and opportunities meeting will feature Part 2, HPV Vaccination for Catch-Up Populations: From Campus to Rural Communities, of the webinar series. The session will showcase a promising evidence‑based intervention (EBI) from Clemson University and the national Extension Collaborative on Immunization Teaching and Engagement (EXCITE) initiative, which achieved a 273% increase in HPV vaccine administration among Clemson students through provider training, point-of-care vaccination, and targeted outreach. We will also highlight the role of EXCITE in advancing rural vaccination through education, partnerships, and stronger community–health system connections

We hope you will also join us for Part 1, Owning Prevention: HPV Vaccination for Catch-Up Populations, on August 13 to explore additional strategies to improve HPV vaccination uptake in catch-up populations and celebrate with us the launch of new materials for the catch-up population from the HPV Vaccination Roundtable of the Southeast’s It's Our Way Down South campaign.

Advancing HPV Vaccination in Rural Communities: Equipping Providers to Improve HPV Vaccination Uptake

The May 14 rural quarterly meeting highlighted Part 2 of the Improving HPV Vaccination in Rural Communities Communication Series, a partnership series from the St. Jude HPV Cancer Prevention Program, the American Cancer Society (ACS), and the ACS National HPV Vaccination Roundtable. Designed to emphasize the importance of a strong provider recommendation for HPV vaccination uptake, the series featured two complementary evidence-based strategies to strengthen provider communication: the Announcement Approach and motivational interviewing (MI).

In Part 2 of the series, Jocelyn Phillips of ACS shared how MI can strengthen HPV vaccination conversations after an initial recommendation for HPV vaccination. Building on Part 1’s introduction to the Announcement Approach, hosted by ACS, this session emphasized the importance of starting with a strong, cancer prevention–focused recommendation and using MI to navigate hesitancy with empathy and confidence.

Participants explored practical techniques such as open-ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summarizing to build trust, address concerns, and support shared decision-making. The discussion reinforced that trust and relationship-building are central to improving vaccine uptake, especially in rural communities.

Together, this two-part series provided a practical, evidence-based communication toolkit pairing the efficiency of the Announcement Approach with the flexibility of motivational interviewing to help rural providers manage real-world conversations from vaccination recommendation through vaccination series completion. The meeting concluded with a call to action to integrate these combined strategies into day-to-day practice to strengthen HPV vaccination efforts and advance cancer prevention in rural communities.

Wide Open Spaces Article Series

Wide Open Spaces is a series of articles included in the St. Jude HPV Cancer Prevention Program’s monthly Path to Prevention newsletter. These articles address ways to improve HPV vaccination with rural communities. Articles are written by guest contributors, who share information on their efforts and success in improving HPV vaccination with rural communities. We invite guest contributors to share information on how they are working to improve HPV vaccination in rural areas.

This month, we feature Rural Realities: Understanding and Reducing Differences in HPV Cancer Prevention, an article about the forthcoming rural HPV data profile, a resource designed to highlight key trends, challenges, and opportunities related to HPV vaccination in rural America.

Recent Wide Open Spaces articles include:

• Closing the HPV Vaccination Gap One Visit at a Time | St. Jude Research (July 2026)

• Leveraging Dental Providers in Rural Areas for HPV Vaccination at Age Nine: An HPV Toolkit for Rural Dental Offices | St. Jude Research (June 2026)

• Clemson University’s HPV Vaccination Approach Becomes Part of National EXCITE Curriculum | St. Jude Research (May 2026)

Access all Wide Open Spaces articles at stjude.org/hpvrural.

We are looking for authors for Wide Open Spaces articles.

Do you have a story about HPV cancer prevention efforts with rural communities? We invite guest contributors to share information on how they are working to improve HPV vaccination in rural areas through the Wide Open Spaces article series, which is promoted in our monthly Path to Prevention newsletter, featured in our quarterly rural HPV vaccination newsletter, and posted on stjude.org/HPVrural. If you are interested in contributing an article please email us at PreventHPV@stjude.org.

National Immunization Awareness Month: Vaccine Resources You Can Trust

As families prepare for the back-to-school season each August, National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM) highlights the importance of staying up to date on recommended vaccines across the lifespan. Keeping vaccinations up to date helps protect students, families, and communities, and leading medical and scientific organizations emphasize that vaccines are safe, effective, and backed by decades of research.

Access resources:

• Trusted immunization resources for NIAM from the American Association of Immunologists

• Voices for Vaccines’ NIAM Toolkit

• Unity Consortium’s adolescent back-to-school campaign

• Vaccinate Your Family’s back-to-school routine immunization campaign

• American Cancer Society National HPV Vaccination Roundtable (ACS HPVRT): You have the Power to Prevent HPV Cancers

A new survey by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) highlights the challenges rural cancer patients face in accessing screening, finding affordable care, and arranging follow up treatment and that patient navigation services help address barriers to care in rural areas and improve quality of care. The survey was released during ACS CAN’s 15^th annual National Policy Forum on the Future of Health Care in Washington, D.C. As part of ACS CAN’s advocacy work to help ensure that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to prevent, detect, treat and survive cancer, this year’s forum focused on the unique challenges faced by cancer patients and survivors in rural communities and explored policy solutions to address those challenges. Additional resources on ACS CAN’s work to reduce the cancer burden in rural communities can be found here.

Rural Health Transformation Program Year 1 Awards Resources

The National Rural Health Association hosts a collection of resources focused on Year 1 of the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) that includes a calendar showing funding deadlines for each state, a map showing state-level progress on RHTP initiatives, and a directory of RHTP state contacts.

If your organization or state’s RHTP‑funded work will include HPV vaccination or HPV cancer prevention, we would love to learn about it and explore ways we can collaborate or support your efforts. Email us at PreventHPV@stjude.org.

View the RHTP Year 1 Awards Resource.

Highlights from Recently Released U.S. Cancer Statistics

The U.S. Cancer Statistics data for 2023 (and 2019-2023) are now available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Highlights include age-adjusted data on cancer incidence, and rural-urban comparisons, including rural and urban cancer incidence breakdowns by demographic groups.

Access the Highlights

Improving Childhood Immunization Access in Rural Washington Through School-Based Partnerships

Washington State's Northeast Tri County Health District (NETCHD) launched efforts to address low rates of childhood immunization within Ferry, Stevens, and Pen Oreille counties via partnerships with schools, public communication, immunization clinics, and other forms of outreach. The School-based Immunization Liaison Program was developed to help address barriers to immunizations that parents are facing in rural areas. Read more about the program here.

AACR Cancer Disparities Progress Report 2026 Examines Disparities in Rural Areas

Released every two years, the report features the latest statistics on both the progress being made against cancer disparities and the continued disproportionate toll that cancer exacts on medically underserved populations, including residents of rural areas. The report explains how the rural-urban gap in cancer incidence and mortality is exacerbated for certain types of cancer. Between 2019 and 2023, incidence rates were higher in rural areas compared with urban areas for lung (37%), cervical (26%), and colorectal (17%) cancers. Residents in rural areas were also more likely to die from these cancers with death rates 27% higher for colorectal cancer, 32% higher for cervical cancer, and 36% higher for lung cancer. Read the full AACR Cancer Disparities Progress Report 2026 for more information about the disparate burden of cancer across population groups in the United States.

AACR will also hold the 19th AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities from October 18 to 21 in Atlanta, Georgia, which will include a special session about the report. The advance registration deadline is September 8.