Gathering a strong team to implement an HPV vaccination campaign on your campus is key to success. Below, we identify some key stakeholders that need to be involved in the planning and implantation of the campaign. We also suggest some additional partners that may be valuable to your efforts.
Campus Partners
There are four key partners that we recommend being involved in your campaign.
- Campus leadership
- Relevant academic departments on campus
- Campus health or local health agencies
- Students
Campus Leadership (Administration, Student Affairs, & Marketing)
It is best to approach and involve the campus administration and/or leadership at the beginning of planning a campus campaign. Their support can help encourage the participation of other stakeholders on campus, leverage resources, and address potential barriers. Invite them or a representative from leadership to participate on the campaign team. If they are not able to commit, it is advised that you determine a means to regularly communicate campaign updates and milestones to a designated person on the leadership team. There may also be someone in the campus marketing office who you can partner with. You could reach a lot of students by working with the marketing team to post on the campus-wide social media pages.
Relevant Academic Departments on Campus
Universities and colleges are full of faculty members and students who may have the expertise to help you with an HPV vaccination campaign. It’s best to assess and identify which of these could best support and contribute resources towards the implementation of a campaign. Though this is not an exhaustive list, you may want to consider the following as potential partners:
- Schools that have a focus on health such as nursing and/or public health: You can work with these schools to help develop your campus’ plan, host clinics, and provide service-learning opportunity to students (e.g., train nursing students on how to give vaccines) or have them communicate within their circles about the importance of vaccination.
- Communication or Marketing: Do you have a contact in the Department of Communication or Department of Marketing at your school? Reach out to them for guidance on how to engage students through current campus communication and public relations initiatives. Communication and Marketing faculty often have expertise in message design and have been trained to think about how to best reach the intended target audience.
Campus Health or Local Health Agencies
Below, we provide more detail about engaging with campus health or with local health agencies or providers who will be able to offer the HPV vaccine to students. But the first step is identifying which is most relevant to your campus. Use the “Vaccination Readiness Assessment” worksheet in Appendix B to know which approach is best for your campus.
Campus Health
Whether they will be the ones offering the vaccine or not, campus health can be a great partner for your campaign. If you have campus health services that include vaccines and accept multiple forms of payment, this is likely the easiest way to recruit and track HPV vaccination on campus. In addition to referring students to campus health, you should also create a protocol to offer vaccines to each student who visits the clinic for any reason.
Local Health Agencies
For campuses that do not have a health clinic that can provide vaccinations to students, you will want to consider some of these options.
- Local Health Departments
- Local resources
- May be able to provide vaccinations, regardless if students have insurance or not
- May help with vaccination drives
- Pharmacies
- Campaign promotion
- Pharmacists can administer vaccines
- Local Healthcare Facilities
- May be willing to help vaccinate students
- Look for facilities that have the capacity to bill insurance or support students without insurance
- Other
- VaxCare/Franciscan/Other Groups?
Students
Student input and involvement is essential to success. They should be included at all stages. It may be helpful to start with established student groups on campus, such as clubs, organizations, or offices that regularly engage with students (e.g., advising). For example, if Greek life is a key part of your campus, fraternities and sororities can be great resources to not only gather feedback on the development of the campaign but also help spread the word to a large campus population. Most universities will have a centralized office that keeps track of all student groups.