1. Mass Media’s Portrayal of HPV Vaccination among Adolescent Males in Online News Content: A Framing Analysis Gabrielle Darville, MPH 1, Whitney D. Smith 2, Tanika Vivien, MS 3, Rebeccah Mercado, MS 1 & Charkarra Anderson – Lewis, PhD 4 1 College of Health & Human Performance, 2 College of Mass Communications & Journalism & 3 College of Nursing The University of Florida, 4 Department of Public Health – The University of Southern Mississippi Introduction Methods Findings In 2014 data from the CDC suggest that 79 million people have HPV, and 14 million become newly infected in the United States each year. This is up from the 20 million and 6.2 million, respectively, that were infected as of 2009 (Habel, Liddon, & Stryker, 2009). The prevalence of this STI in women is 26.8 percent and ranges from 20 percent to 73 percent in males. It is common for males to present asymptomatic, therefore skin-to-skin sexual activity with a partner creates a higher risk of disease transmission (Reiter,McRee, Kadis, Brewer, 2011; No et al., 2011; Tota, Chevarie-Davis, Richardson, deVries & Franco, 2011). Because the vaccine is beneficial to males in that it helps prevent HPV and thus genital warts, in 2009 the US approved the quadrivalent HPV vaccine for males aged 9 to 26. HPV is associated with a variety of cancers in men, including anal, penile and oral cancer. The decrease or increase in male vaccinations has the potential to affect the HPV vaccine efficacy rate in women – 44% decrease prevalence compared to 30% (No et al., 2011). Purpose Identify the three most common themes found in the media articles related to males and the HPV vaccine. Discuss the media's perceived tone about males and the HPV vaccine. Compare the amount of media articles about males and the HPV vaccine that discussed males exclusively, as opposed to both males and females. Design & Sample Qualitative framing analysis of news outlets. Sample was obtained from the top six mainstream online media news outlets (ABC News, The Huffington Post, CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, and The Washington Post ). Preliminary search resulted in 89 articles with final sample excluding irrelevant articles (N=84). Procedure Search terms were used : (a) “HPV vaccine boys US” (b) “HPV vaccine males US” and (c) “HPV vaccine men US.” Search Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria: Feature, news, blogs and opinion stories were included. Stories had to be published within time frames set. Stories were eliminated if they solely focus on females or did not mention males and only included an external link to an outside page. Limited the timeframe based on CDC’s 2010 recommendations for males. May 1, 2009 – April 30 th, 2010 May 1 st, 2010 – April 30 th, 2011 May 1 st, 2011 – April 30 th, 2012 Developed a 16 item code book for thematic coding and analysis. Discussed themes among the three co-coders until consensus. Nearly all (97.6%) of the sample (n=84) discussed both sexes, in contrast, none discussed males exclusively. Media frames the HPV vaccine as cancer prevention for males, in contrast females are stigmatized and sexuality/ promiscuity is highlighted. Significant lack of promotion for the vaccine among males The media should present the HPV virus and HPV vaccine as both an issue for males and females with more attention to males as they are a pivotal element to effective herd immunity. A limitation to this study is the articles’ inability to discuss specific rationales for low uptake. For this team potential reasons for low uptake occurred across themes. Considering the impact media has on the public’s health knowledge, healthcare practitioners should recognize there is a lack of media content that promotes the HPV vaccine for males and engage in more discussion with male patients. Discussion & Conclusion Table 1 Distinctive Thematic Frames: Descending Order of Occurrence in Articles Disease Process Health Benefits Recommendations & Mandates Pharmaceuticals Responsibility Sexual Activity Cost Politics