RE: Progress in HPV Vaccine Hesitancy

In the article by Sonawane et al,1 the important question of parental hesitancy regarding adolescent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is examined. The authors reported an increase in hesitancy over a 6-year period (from 50% to 64%) among US parents asked about it. This apparent increase is due to progressively restricting the denominator in later years. Most importantly, the analytic choice masks a more general truth: HPV vaccine hesitancy actually fell among parents overall. To make sense of this seeming paradox, let us start by observing that … E-mail: ntb{at}unc.edu